
;''^^ 



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fenfJleilan.f ZiiA'. 




JUNIUS UNMASKED; 

OR 

LORD GEORGE SACKVILLE 
PROVED TO BE JUNIUS. 

WITH AN APPENDIX, 

SHOWING, 

THAT THE AUTHOR OF THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS 

WAS ALSO 

THE AUTHOR OF ' THE HISTORY OF THE REIGIf OF GEORGE III,' 

AND AUTHOR OF ' THE NORTH BRITON,' 

ASCRIBED TO MR. WILKES. 



EMBELLISHED WITH A PRINT OF SACKVILLE. 



Movet Urna JSTomen. 



BOSTON: 

BILLIARD, GRAY, LITTLE, AND WILKINS. 

1828. 



. c >, ■- 

5 0^^99 



DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS, to wit: 

District Clerk's Office. 
BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the twenty-third day of April, 
A. D. 1828, in the fifty-second year of the Independence of the 
United States of America, Hilliard, Gray, Little, and Wilkins, of the 
said district, have deposited in this office the title of a book, the right 
whereof they claim as proprietors, in the words following, to wit : 
— " Junius Unmasked ; or Lord George Sackville proved to he Ju- 
nius. With an Appendix, showing, that the Author of the Letters 
of Junius was also the Author of ' The History of the Reign of 
George III,' and Author of ' The North Briton,' ascribed to Mr. 
Wilkes. Embellished with a Print of Sackville. Movet Urna JYo- 
men." — In conformity to the act of the Congress of the United 
States, entitled "An act for the encouragement of learning, by secur- 
ing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and pro- 
prietors of such copies, during the times therein menioned : " and 
also to an act, entitled " An act supplementary to an act, entitled, 
' An act for the encouragement of learning, by seeming the copies of 
maps, charts, and books to the authors and proprietors of such copies 
during the times therein mentioned ; ' and extending the benefits 
thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and 
other prints. JNO. W. DAVIS, 

Clerk of the District of Massachusetts. 



CAMBRIDGE. 
HILLIARD, METCALF, AND COMPANY. 




> 



^ 





CONTENTS. 


*REPAC] 


Page. 
3 - - - I 


Chapter. 




I. 


History of the Letters of Junius and sup- 




posed Authors 7 


II. 


Memoir of Sackville - - - - 20 


III. 


Presumptive Argument - - - 46 


IV. 


Argument from Sackville's " Address " - 69 


V. 


Argument from the " Considerations " - 75 


VI. 


Argument from the " Reply to Burgoyne " 97 


VII. 


Argument from Sackville's Speeches - 103 


VIII. 

Appen 


Concluding Remarks - - - - 107 

DIX. 



I. Junius the Author of " The History of the 

Reign of George III." - - -119 
II. Junius the Author of " The North Briton " 142 

Notes 169 



ERRATA. 

Page 57, line 16, for note read vote. 
" 107, " 6, " destruction read detraction. 
" 113, " 17, " This read His. 



PREFACE. 



It is now some years, since I was convinced by 
what may be called internal evidence, that lord 
George Sackville, othervi'ise called lord George 
Germain, was the author of the celebrated Letters 
of Junius. The comparison of a short piece, writ- 
ten by him before those letters were published, ex- 
hibited such a co-incidence in some striking peculiari- 
ties of style, as left with me no doubt on the subject. 
The reasons of my opinion, then committed to 
writing, are now before me. A subsequent perusal 
of Woodfall's edition of Junius confirmed my per- 
suasion by a great variety of considerations, which 
I also recorded at the time. Having this impression, 
I lately procured the "Critical Enquiry" of Mr. 
Coventry, publislied at London, 1825^ in which 
1 



U PREFACE. 

he endeavors to prove, that Sackville was the author 
of the letters of Junius ; — a point, vi^hich, I think, he 
has proved beyond any reasonable doubt. Yet, 
however strong and unanswerable may be the argu- 
ment of Mr. Coventry, there is a class of proofs, 
yet stronger and more irresistible, which he has in 
a great measure overlooked ; — I mean the internal 
proofs, derived from habits of thought and pecuhari- 
ties of style. 

My original narrow field of comparison I have re^ 
cently greatly enlarged, not only by the letters and 
speeches of lord Sackville, contained in Mr. Cov- 
entry's book ; but more especially and chiefly by two 
considerable pamphlets, written, as I am persuaded 
and shall attempt to prove, by lord Sackville ; — 
works, of which Mr. Coventry was ignorant. While 
therefore I shall not fail to present to the reader the 
substance of Mr. Coventry's argument, I shall bring 
forward an entirely new argument, constituting the 
greater part of my work. 

It ought to be considered, that there are different 
kinds of proof; — some demonstrative, founded on 



PREFACE. m 

definitions, and proceeding link by link with intui- 
tive evidence ; others prohahle, founded on a com- 
bination of circumstances, yet perhaps amounting to 
moral certainty and producing the most unshaken 
persuasion. There may be such " a conjugation of 
probabilities," as will strike the mind with the force 
of a mathematical demonstration. For instance, 
there is no more doubt, that the letters of Junius, 
which we now read, were first published in London 
in the years 1769, 1770, &z;c., than there is, that the 
three angles of a triangle are equal to two right an- 
gles. I hope, therefore, it will not be thought, that 
there is any thing unbecoming or presumptuous in 
the title of this book, — ' Sackville proved to be Ju- 
nius.' I am satisfied the proof is made out ; and, 
1 flatter myself, others will be satisfied. 

In the comparison as to style, I am aware, that it 
will be easy to take out a single supposed co-inci- 
dence, and ,to say, that it amounts to nothing, because 
the same word or phrase may be found in other wri- 
ters. The argument rests on the whole resemblance ; 
yet the whole must be made up of particular instan- 



IV PREFACE. 

ces. If in a court of justice I should endeavor to 
prove, tha,t the prisoner was the murderer, and should 
begin with alleging, that the prisoner's eyes were 
black, as the murderer's eyes were known to be ; — 
the man, who should limit his attention to this single 
proof, might indeed cavil at my argument. He 
might exclaim, — ' This is absurd ! The eyes of ten 
thousand people are black.' But if I should go on 
to show, that the prisoner has the same cast or squint 
of his eyes, the same features throughout, the same 
stature, the same gait, and the same limp with the 
murderer ;-^that he was at the place, in the time, 
when and where the murder was committed ; — 
and that he had been previously engaged in a quarrel 
with the deceased, and had a strong interest in put- 
ting him out of the way ; — if he never even denied 
his guilt and asserted his innocence ; — and if at a 
time, when he thought he was dying, he had sent for 
a son of the deceased, with whom he !had never 
quarrelled, and in a mysterious speech asked his 
forgiveness for any possible injury ; — if these and 
other numerous corresponding circumstances should 



PREFACE. y 

all be established ; it would then be seen, that what 
was trifling in itself, yet was of weight in its connex- 
ions; and that a multiplicity of co-inciding circum- 
stances amounted, if not to demonstration, yet to 
something higher, than the positive testimony of a 
witness, or even the prisoner's confession. 

If the authorship of Junius be estabhshed, it may 
prevent for the future much idle speculation on the 
subject. Nor can it fail to be considered as a very 
extraordinary circumstance, that the English poHti- 
cal writer, most generally admired by Americans, 
should prove to be the inveterate enemy of Ameri- 
can liberty, — the stern British Minister, who devised 
and ordered the murderous, savage inroads, which 
covered with desolation and indescribable horrors 
some of the fairest villages of the American frontier. 

B , Dec. 1827. 



1* 



JUNroS UNMASKED. 



CHAPTER I. 



The History and supposed Authors of the Letters of 
Junius. 

The first public letter of Junius, contained in the 
edition prepared by the author, was published at 
London, in the Public Advertiser, of which Mr. 
Henry Sampson Woodfall was the proprietor, Janu- 
ary 21, 1769 ; his last letter was published January 
21, 1772. But among the miscellaneous letters of 
the same writer, found in Woodfall's edition, there 
is one, with the signature of Junius, dated Novem- 
ber 21, 1768. Among his other signatures were 
those of Poplicola, Mnemon, Atticus, Lucius, 
Junius, Philo-Junius, Nemesis, Domitian, Vindex, 
and Veteran. The first public address, received 
from him by Mr. Woodfall, was dated April 28j 
1767. The last private letter was dated January 
19, 1773; so that he was a correspondent of Mr. 



8 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

Woodfall for nearly six years. Early in 1772 the 
Letters of Junius were collected in a volume, under 
the direction of the author, and published with the 
motto — " Stat Nominis Umbra." 

The letters of Junius, folded small, with an envel- 
ope, were sent by the hands of some chairman or 
ticket-porter to the office of Mr. Woodfall. The 
original copies of the letters were returned to the 
author, as soon as they were done with, addressed 
to Mr. William Middleton or Mr. John Fretly, and 
left at a coffee-house, a hint being given in the 
Advertiser, as ' C. at the usual place.'' They were 
called for by a chairman or ticket-porter, and deliv- 
ered either to the author or his agent, in waiting in 
some part of the city. Mr. Jackson " once saw a 
tall gentleman, dressed in a light coat, with bag and 
sword, throw into the office door, opening in Ivy- 
lane, a letter of Junius', which he picked up and 
immediately followed the bearer of it into St. Paul's 
Church-yard, where he got into a hackney coach 
and drove off." 

The private letters of Junius being written in the 
same hand with the public letters, it is probable, 
from the interlineations in the letters, that no aman- 
uensis was employed. Indeed the writer's hand 
was evidently disguised. The return of the letters 
provided in a great degree for his safety. 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 9 

It is probable, that Junius had an agent in con- 
veying the letters, so as not to expose his own per- 
son. He says to Woodfall — " The gentleman, who 
transacts the conveyancing part of our correspond- 
ence, tells me, there was much difficulty last night. 
For this reason, and because it could be no way 
material for me to see a paper on Saturday, which 
is to appear on Monday, 1 resolved not to send for 
it." — Yet it is possible, that Junius in disguise, at 
first if not afterwards, repaired to the bar of the 
coffee-house for his letters, for he says of a coffee- 
house ; — " Where it is absolutely impossible / should 
be known." 

The letters of Junius have been ascribed to a 
multitude of individuals. I am not sure, that the 
following list includes all the supposed authors : — 
Horace Waipole, Charles Lloyd, private secretary 
of Mr. Grenville, John Roberts, Samuel Dyer, 
W. G. Hamilton, Dr. Butler, bishop of Hereford, 
Rev. P. Rosenhagen, Thomas Hollis, W. H. C. Ben- 
tinck, J. P. De Lolme, Dr. Wilmot, J. Home Tooke, 
Hugh Macauley Boyd, lord Shelburne, colonel 
Barre, Dr. Gilbert Stuart, John Wilkes, John Dun- 
ning, Richard Glover, the earl of Chatham, Sir 
WiUiam Jones, Edward Gibbon, Henry Flood, Ed- 
mund Burke, and Sir Philip Francis. I think it 
wholly unnecessary to beat down the slight preten- 



10 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

sions, set up in favor of almost all these claimants. 
Dr. Johnson declared, that he knew no person, ex- 
cept Burke, who was capable of writing the letters 
of Junius. Yet the temper, the sentiments, the style, 
and the voluntary disclaimer of Burke have, I be- 
lieve, produced a general persuasion, that he could 
not be the author. The case of Sir Philip Francis 
is set forth ingeniously by Mr. John Taylor in his 
work, entitled, " The Identity of Junius with a distin- 
guished living Character ;" yet his mass of evidence 
dwindles down before an exact scrutiny, and is 

overpowered completely by the evidence in favor 

» 
of lord Sackville. 

Mr. Bisset says, that " most of the writers against 

Junius, in the periodical publications of the times, 

address him as an Irishman." It is almost certain, 

that the author of Junius received his education in 

Ireland. He uses the term collegian, in the sense 

of an academic or gownsman, differently, it is said, 

from its use at Oxford and Cambridge : — " the 

little sneering sophistries of a collegian." The 

phrase ' so far forth ' I find in bislTop Berkeley of 

Ireland, but I doubt whether it is found in any good 

writer in 1769, unless he had been educated in 

Ireland : — " So far forth, as it operates, it constitutes 

a house of commons." The following use of shall 

and should is hardly pure English : — " In vain shall 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 11 

you look for protection to that venal vote : " — " If 
from the profoundest contempt, I should ever rise 
into anger, he should soon find, that all I have 
already said of him was lenity #nd compassion." 
I am satisfied no man, who had not been conver- 
sant either with Ireland or Scotland, would have 
employed the word mean in this manner : — " They, 
who object to detached j)arts of Junius' letter, either 
do not mean Mm fairly, or have not considered, Sec." 
— " I meant the cause and the public ; both are 
given up." — "You are satisfied, that I mean you 
well." — " By all, that 's honorable, I mean nothing 
but the cause." The bitterness of Junius towards 
the Scotch proves, that he was not a Scotchman. 

There are other reasons for considering the author 
of Junius as well acquainted with Ireland. It is, then, 
altogether probable, that either Burke, Sir Philip 
Francis, or lord Sackville was the author. In re- 
spect to Burke, a late writer, Mr. Charles Butler, 
says — " It is known, that Sir William Draper at first 
divided his suspicions of the authorship of Junius be- 
tween Burke and lord George Sackville, and that, on 
Burke's unequivocal denial of it, he transferred them 
wholly to his Lordship." Now, as Sir William Dra- 
per entered personally into a conflict with Junius, he 
was much interested to know the author. He was 
intimate with lord Granby, commander in chief, and 



12 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

could hear the suggestions of the men in power in 
regard to the supposed author. It is probable there- 
fore, that his suspicions were transferred to the 
right person. — Mr. ,iBoswell, in his Life of Johnson, 
remarks — " He said, 1779, I should have believed 
Burke to be Junius, because I know no man but 
Burke, who is capable of writing these letters ; but 
Burke spontaneously denied it to me. The case would 
have been different, had I asked him, if he was the 
author ; a man so questioned, as to an anonymous 
publication, may think he has a right to deny it." 
This denial, taking into view the moral character of 
Burke, will probably be deemed decisive. There 
are certainly many points of resemblance in the style 
of Junius and Burke ; but there are also striking 
diversities. The resemblance may be owing to an 
Irish education and to the study of the same models 
of style ; the diversities are hardly reconcileable 
with the identity of Burke and Junius. 

Mr. Bissett has stated various reasons for and 
against considering Mr. Burke as the author of the 
letters of Junius. In his pohtical principles gener- 
ally, but particularly in hostility to the Grafton ad- 
ministration and to the doctrines of lord Mansfield, 
Burke agreed with Junius. Burke had also the 
requisite talents and genius. But the considerations 
on the other side appear to be unanswerable. The 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 13 

intellectual character of Junius differs exceedingly 
from that of Burke. " In Junius we have more of 
perspicuity than of expansion 5 more of pungency 
than of force. — He rapidly penetrates into particu- 
lars, but does not rise to general views. — Junius 
keeps directly to his subject : the rapidly associating 
mind of Burke pursues his thoughts through a train 
of combinations. — The style of Junius is clear, cor- 
rect, and precise, with no great variety : the style 
of Burke copious, brilliant, forcible, with wonderful 
variety." — Besides this diversity, the sentiments of 
Junius differ from the known sentiments of Burke. 
Junius speaks of lord Rockingham's administration, 
as " dissolving in its own weakness :" of that admin- 
istration Burke had been a member and was a stren- 
uous supporter. Lord Rockingham was his patron 
and friend, and had advanced, towards the purchase 
of his villa, ten thousand pounds. Junius was in 
favor of triennial parliaments : Burke was uniformly 
averse to the project. Junius disapproves of the 
opposition to Mr. Grenville's laws respecting Amer- 
ica : Burke constantly opposed American taxation. 
— Burke also himself, in one of his speeches, speaks 
thus of Junius, — " How comes Junius to have 
broke through the cobwebs of the law, and to range 
uncontrolled and unpunished through the land ? 
The myrmidons of the court pursue him in vain. 
2 



14 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

They will not spend their time on me or you ; they 
disdain such vermin, when the mighty hoar of the 
forest, that has broke their toils, is before them. 
When I saw his attack upon the king, my blood run 
cold; not, that there are not in that composition 
many bold truths, by which a prince might profit : 
it was the rancor and venom, with which I was 
struck. When I expected from his daring flight his 
fall and final ruin, I behold him soaring higher, and 
coming souse upon both houses of parliament j nor 
has he dreaded the terrors of your brow. Sir. [Sir 
Fletcher Norton.] King, Lords, and Commons 
are the sport of his fury." 

It is hardly credible, that Burke would speak 
thus of Junius, if he was himself the writer of the 
letters of Junius. And indeed, I think, from read- 
ing the writings of Burke, that he was incapable of 
the venom and rancor, certainly in respect to public 
men in England, with which Junius is chargeable. 
Besides, it is known, that Mr. Burke prosecuted 
Mr. Woodfall for a libel in 1784, and obtained a 
verdict of one hundred pounds damages. It is hard- 
ly possible, that the author of Junius, the[friend of Mr. 
Woodfall, giving him all the profits from the sale of 
his letters, should have prosecuted for a libel the 
printer of all his own libels. 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 15 

In respect to Sir Philip Francis, so far as style is 
concerned, it is not impossible, that he was the author 
of Junius. Though he left Ireland, when he was ten 
years of age j yet from his father he might afterwards 
have derived a tinge of the Irish idiom. Sir Philip 
was born in 1740. The first letter from the author of 
Junius, under a different signature, was dated April 
28, 1767. At this period, at the age of twenty-six, 
is it probable, that Sir Philip could have been quali- 
fied to commence those writings, for the production of 
which Dr. Johnson knew no one to be competent 
excepting Mr. Burke ? But Sir Philip at this time 
held an important post in the war ofiice, which he 
retained till 1772. In the discharge of its duties it 
is impossible, that he should have found leisure for 
the great labors of Junius. 

In a private letter, November 27, 1771, Junius 
says — " After long experience of the World I affirm 
before God, I never knew a rogue, who was not 
unhappy." Sackville might say this at the age of 
fifty-six ; but how could Sir Philip at the age of 
thirty-one ? Two years before this Junius said — 
" Long habit has taught me to pass by all the 
declamation, with which champions parade. I look 
upon it as no better than those flourishes of the 
back sword, with which the great masters of my time 
in the amphitheatre entertained the spectators." 



16 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

June 1769, — "I remember seeing Busembaum, Sua- 
rez, Molina, and a score of othei Jesuitical books, 
burnt at Paris for their sound casuistry by the hands 
of the common hangman. Lett. Apr. 1768." If 
this occurrence was in 1764, when the order of 
Jesuits was put down in France, it is utterly improb- 
able, that Sir Philip, who had just entered, in 1763,. 
upon his labors in the war office, could have found 
time to visit Paris : if, as has been thought, the 
occurrence was many years before, then Sir Philip 
was too young to have gone abroad. Sackville 
accompanied his father, the duke of Dorset, to 
Paris in 173S, when he was twenty-one years of 
age. When Sir Philip was questioned on this sub- 
ject in 1813 by the editor of the Monthly Magazine, 
he replied — " Whether you will assist in giving cur- 
rency to a silly, malignant /cZseAooc? is a question for 
your own discretion. To me it is a matter of per- 
fect indifference," 

In respect to any similarity of style between Sir 
Philip and Junius, to show which a long array of 
passages is produced ; it is easily accounted for by 
the admiration, with which the letters of Junius must 
have been studied by Sir Philip, and by his diligent 
imitation of their supposed excellencies. Mr. Tay- 
lor has shown a co-incidence of thought and style. 
If he could have produced some writing of Sir Phil- 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 17 

ip antecedent to the letters of Junius, his argument 
might have been of some value. 

The resemblance in respect to hand-writing, on 
which Mr. Taylor places some reliance, I think on 
careful examination amounts to nothing. Sack- 
ville's writing, though twenty-five years earlier, has 
a strong resemblance to that of Junius. In my 
judgment it is the same hand. That Sir Philip 
wrote tho\ and Enhance, mgross, mforce, mslave, 
&c. instead of though, enhance, &;c. in the manner 
of Junius, proves nothing of itself, for Sackville 
wrote in the same manner. Probably both adopted 
the method of writing iwhance &c. from Dr. Fran- 
cis' Demosthenes, — a work, which, I doubt not, Ju- 
nius diligently studied, and from which he trans- 
planted many words and phrases into his own 
writings. 

How could Mr. Francis say, in the midst of his 
labors at the war-office, as Junius said August 15, 
1771, — " Is there no merit in dedicating my life to 
the information of my fellow subjects ? — What pub- 
lic question have I declined ? — What villain have I 
spared ? — Is there no labor in the composition of 
these letters ? Mr. Home, I fear, is partial to me ; 
and measures the facility of my writings by the 
fluency of his own." 
2* 



18 JUNIUS UNMASKE1>. 

I am therefore satisfied, beyond a doubt, that Sir 
Philip was not the author of Junius. Yet I am not 
certain, that he was not a friend of lord Sackville, 
patronized by him, and employed by him as his 
agent in his secret correspondence. Junius says, 
January 18, 1772, — "The gentleman, who transacts 
the conveyancing part of our correspondence, tells 
me there was much difficulty last night." This 
gentleman, who was once observed, was tall, as were 
both Sackville and Sir Philip ; but the danger of 
performing his own errand must to lord Sackville 
have been extreme. Therefore he might have 
employed a confidential agent, and that agent, I 
believe, was Sir Philip ; especially as the letters of 
Junius exhibit a minute acquaintance with the affairs 
of the war office, which could have been obtained 
only from one of the clerks of the office. It was in 
1763, that Sir Philip was appointed to a considerable 
post in the war office by the secretary. Lord Bar- 
rington compelled him to resign in March 1772. 
Junius, under the signature of Veteran, immediately- 
published a letter on the subject, m-anifesting his 
friendship to Mr, Francis, and violently assailing 
lord Barrington. 

In the same month Junius wrote to his printer^ 
Woodfall, that his labors were at an end : — " The 
difficulty of corresponding arises from situation and 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 19 

necessity, to which we must submit." — In May he 
requested a copy of the letters, bound. Junius 
wrote no more till January 1773. If Francis was 
his sole agent, this silence can be explained, be- 
cause, it is known, that he was absent during the 
greater part of the year 1772, travelling on the con- 
tinent. About the time of his return Woodfall 
received a private letter from Junius. Signals had 
been thrown out for some time in the newspaper ; 
but till then Junius could not write : — " I have had 
good reason for not complying with them." At 
this time Junius was able to receive the books from 
Woodfall, which for more than half a year he was 
not able to receive. It is then very supposable, 
that Mr. Francis was the " gentleman " employ- 
ed by lork Sackville in the " conveyancing depart- 
ment." He might have received such obligations, 
as would bind him to a silence, which, if he was 
entrusted with the secret, he sacredly preserved. 
If Mr. Francis did not assist Junius, Mr. D'Oyley, a 
clerk, who was dismissed about the same time, and 
who became afterwards private secretary of Sack- 
ville, might have furnished the information, with 
which Junius was supplied, and have been the con- 
veyancer of 4he letters. 



CHAPTER n. 

Memoir of Sackville. 

That lord George Sackville was the author of 
the letters of Junius is in my opinion completely 
established by such a combination of circumstances, 
as have almost the force of demonstration. These 
circumstances it will be my business to arrange. 

It may be convenient, first, to advert to the history 
of his life. He was the third son of the first Duke of 
Dorset, and was born June 26, 1716. He was 
sent to Westminster school. In 1730, at the age 
of fourteen, he accompanied his father to Ireland, 
and was educated at Trinity college, Dublin, where 
he had a high reputation for his literary attainments. 
At the age of twenty-one he obtained a commission 
in the army. In 1738 he accompanied his father to 
Paris, where he acquired a perfect knowledge of 
the French language. In 1740 he was lieutenant 
colonel. In 1742 he went with George II. to 
Hanover. He distinguished himself at the bat- 
tle of Dettingen in 1743, and at that of Fontenoy 
in 1744, in which he received a bullet in his breast. 
He was at the battle of CuUoden in Scotland in 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 21 

1746. He afterwards served on the continent. In 
1749 he was a member of parliament. He was 
secretary to his father in Ireland in 1751. In Sep- 
tember 1754 he married Miss Diana Sambrook of 
Dover street, by whom he had two sons, Charles 
and George, and three daughters. In 1755 he was 
appointed major general, and in 1758 lieutenant 
general. August 1, 1759, was fought the battle of 
Minden, at which he was accused of disobeying 
the orders of prince Ferdinand. He was degraded 
from office by a court martial, and abused by the 
king. 

Before his trial came on, many pamphlets were 
published on the two sides of the question. One of 
them, entitled ' A Letter to a late noble commander 
of the British forces in Germany,' printed at Edin- 
burgh, and also at London for R. Griffiths, 1759, 
pages 74, must have had great influence in preju- 
dicing the public against him, as it is written with 
great ability and elegance. It may well bear a 
comparison with the most polished and eloquent 
letters of Junius, ten years afterwards. The writer 
says : — " The command of those brave bands 
devolved upon your lordship. Had the public 
choice directed the appointment, perhaps no one 
could have been found more likely to discharge the 
important duty with honor, skill, and fidelity. De- 



22 JTITNIUS UNMASKED. 

scended from one of the noblest stocks in the king- 
dom, one eminently distinguished for loyalty, and 
yourself honored with the confidence of your sove- 
reign,— who would suspect you of disaffection '' 
Having been tried in action, and your firmness ex- 
tolled, — who could doubt your courage ? of which 
you are said to bear honorable marks where it is a 
soldier's pride to show them — in your breast. From 
the proofs you had given of your abilities here, and 
in a neighboring kingdom more especially, who 
could question your capacity ? — Noble from your 
birth, great in your endowments, every thing great 
and noble was expected from your conduct. 

" To your country's detriment, and your own 
dishonor, the expectations of the public are disap- 
pointed. We looked for a commander, and we find 
a commentator. We depended upon an active 
warriofr, and we meet with an idle disputant ; one, 
who in the field of battle debates upon orders with 
all the phlegm of an academic, when he ought to 
execute them with all the vigor and intrepidity of an 
hero." 

Speaking of Sackville's aged father, the writer 
says — " Though we lament his feelings, we admire 
his fortitude. Moved with the affection of a tender 
parent, he adheres to justice with a Roman vigor, 
and nobly scorns to interpose between an offending 
son and injured country." 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 23 

The writer of this masterly letter is unknown. I 
doubt not that by the study of it Sackville improved 
his style, however little it may have mended his 
temper. 

The court for the trial of lord Sackville consisted 
of Sir Charles Howard, president, lieutenant gene- 
ral Campbell, lords Delaware, Cholmondely, Stuart, 
earls of Panmure, Ancram, Harrington, Abercrom- 
bie, Albemarle, major generals Leighton and Carr, 
earls of Effingham and Belford, lords Robert 
Manners and Robert Bertie, and Julius Csesar : 
Charles Gould, judge advocate. Witnesses against 
him were prince Ferdinand's Hessian aid de camp, 
colonel Fitzroy, colonel Sloper, and lord Granby j 
in his favor, his aid captain Smith, colonel Hotham, 
captain G. Williams, captain Macbean. At the 
close of his defence Sackville said, that " those, 
who had sworn falsely, must feel the ill effects in 
their own breasts : that he was always ready to obey 
orders and discharge his duty : and with respect to 
the present charge, he said, till the court has said 
I am guilty, I stand here with a conscience inno- 
cent, asserting that innocence, which bears testimo- 
ny for me." The sentence of the court, March or 
April 1760, was as follows — " The court, upon due 
consideration of the whole matter before them, is of 
opinion, that lord George Sackville is guilty of hav- 



24 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

ing disobeyed the orders of prince Ferdinand of 
Brunswick, whom he was by his commission and 
instructions directed to obey, as commander in chief 
according to the rules of war : and it is the farther 
opinion of this court, that the said lord George Sack- 
ville is, and he is hereby adjudged, unfit to serve his 
Majesty in any military capacity whatever." 

This sentence was confirmed in orders April 
23, 1760, as follows : — " It is his Majesty's plea- 
sure, that the above sentence be given out in public 
orders, that officers being convinced, that neither 
high birth, nor great employments can shelter 
offences of such a nature ; and that seeing they are 
subject to censures, much worse than death, to a 
man, who has any sense of honor, they may avoid 
the fatal consequences, arising from disobedience of 
orders." On the 25th April his Majesty ordered 
the name of lord Sackville to be struck out of the 
list of privy counsellors. May 2d, John, marquis of 
Granby, was appointed a member of the privy coun- 
cil. 
The most important witnesses were the marquis of 
Granby, colonel Fitzroy, brother to the duke of 
Grajfton, and colonal William Augustus Pitt. These 
families were assailed by Junius. 

The defence of Sackville was this, that contra- 
dictory orders were brought to him by the two aids 



JUNIUS UNMASKEP. 25 

of prince Ferdinand, and that in this dilemma he 
immediately repaired to the prince himself in order 
to ascertain which of the orders he was to obey. 

He was in parliament from 1760 till he was call- 
««ed to llie House of Lords in 1782 ; from 1768 he 
represented the borough of East Grinstead, which 
he purchased. From 1760 to 1765 he made only 
one speech. In 1765 he was a member of the 
Privy Council and appointed one of the vice-treasur- 
ers of Ireland. In 1769 he took the name of Ger- 
main in consequence of the will of lady Betty 
Germain, who bequeathed to him £20,000 in per- 
sonal property, besides valuable estates at Drayton 
in Northamptonshire, although she was not related 
to him. 

Early, in the session of 1770 he became distin- 
guished. " His talents as a declaimer, his elo- 
quence as an orator, his sound reasoning and forcible 
language soon gained him the applause of the 
house, although a violent oppositionist to the meas- 
ures of ministers." 

January 22, 1770, he supported for speaker 
Thomas Townsend, afterwards lord Sydney, his 
most intimate friend, against Sir Fletcher Norton, 
the ministerial candidate, who was elected : — " I 
beg leave to second the noble lord's motion. Mr. 
Townsend, while the other gentleman has been 



26 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

practising in the courts below, has been learning 
business of a superior kind ; the business of the 
nation and this house. — Forms of practice are 
things very different from rules of right. — A man 
may be well acquainted with the face of a country* 
and its divisions, as laid down in a map, without 
knowing a step of the road to a single market 
town ; and he, that has been used to travel the 
turnpike road, on journeys of business, may be 
less acquainted with the shorter cuts through parks, 
forests, and privileged places, than those, whose 
situations and connexions have admitted them to 
the chase, which is regulated by rules very different 
from paying toll at a turnpike, or bills at an inn. 
Upon the whole, I should think a minute acquaint- 
ance with the practice of courts of law rather a 
disqualification for the chair in this house." 

On a motion, December 6, 1770, in the House 
of Commons to inquire into the administration 
of criminal justice, Sackville. made an eloquent 
speech. He said — " Consider, gentlemen, what 
will be the consequence of refusing this demand, 
this debt, which you owe to the anxious expectation 
of the public. The people, seeing Us [lord Mans- 
field's] avowed defenders so loth to bring him forth 
on the public stage, and to make him plead his 
cause before their tribunal, will naturally conclude, 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 37 

that he could not bear the light, because his deeds 
were evil ; and that, therefore, you judged it advis- 
able to screen him behind the curtain of a majority. 
Though his conduct was never questioned in Parlia- 
ment,^ mark how he is every day, and every hour, 
pointed out in print- and conversation, as a perverter 
of the law, and an enemy of the constitution. No 
epithet is too bad for him. Now he is the subtile 
Scroggs, now, the arbitrary Jeffries. All the re- 
cords of our courts of law and all the monuments 
of our lawyers are ransacked, in order to find suffi- 
ciently odious names, by which he may be christen- 
ed. The hbellous and virulent spirit of the times 
has overleaped all the barriers of law, order, and 
decorum. The judges are no longer revered, and 
the laws have lost all their salutary terrors. Juries 
will not convict petty delinquents, when, they sus- 
pect, grand criminals go unpunished. Hence libels 
and lampoons, audacious beyond the example of all 
other times; libels, in comparison of which the 
North Briton, once deemed the ne plus ultra of 
sedition, is perfect innocence and simplicity. The 
sacred number, forty-five, formerly the idol of the 
multitude, is eclipsed by the superior venom of 
every day's defamation : all its magical and talis- 
manic powers are lost and absorbed in the gen- 
eral deluge of scandal, which pours from the 



28 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

press. When matters are thus circumstanced, 
when the judges in general, and Lord Mansfield in 
'particular, are there hung out to public scorn 
and detestation, now that libellers receive no coun- 
tenance from men high in power, and in the public 
esteem ; what will be the consequence, when it is 
publicly known, that they have been arraigned, and 
that their friends quashed the inquiry, vs^hich it was 
proposed to make upon their conduct ? The con- 
sequence is more easily conceived than expressed. 
I foresee, that the imps of the press, the sous of 
ink, and the printers' devils will be all in motion, 
and they will spare you as little as they will the 
judges. 

" Like the two thieves in the Gospel, both will be 
hung up and gibbetted, with the law crucified be- 
'tween you, for the entertainment of coifee-house 
politicians, greasy carmen, porters, and barbers in 
tippling houses and night cellars. I cannot help 
thinking, that it is the wish of lord Mansfield him- 
self to have his conduct examined, nay, I collect 
as much from the language of a gentleman, who 
may be supposed to know his sentiments. What 
foundation then is there for obstructing the inquiry ? 
None at all. It is a pleasure to me to see my no- 
ble friend discovering such symptoms of conscious 
innocence. His ideas perfectly co-incide with my 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 29 

own. I would never oppose the minutest scrutiny 
into my behavior. However much condemned by 
the envy or malice of enemies, I would at least 
show, that I stood acquitted in my own mind. Qui 
fugit judicium, ipso teste, reus est." 

Junius said December 12, in reference to this 
speech, — " Let it be known to posterity, that when 
lord Mansfield was attacked with so much vehe- 
mence in the House of Commons, not one of the 
ministry said a word in his defence." 

In 1773 he concurred with the ministry in regard 
to the East India affairs. Early in this year the 
last letter of Junius to Mr. Woodfall was written. 

In a speech on American affairs March 28, 1774, 
he pointed out the measures necessary to be adopt- 
ed, and was publicly thanked for his suggestions by 
lord North, who said — " they were worthy so great 
a mind." The speech chiefly related to the gov- 
ernment of Massachusetts ; the following are ex- 
tracts from it : — " I could have wished, that the 
noble lord, when he was framing this scheme of 
salvation, would have at least considered, that there 
were other parts of the internal government, neces- 
sary to be put under some regulation. I mean 
particularly the internal government of Massachu- 
setts Bay. I wish to see the council of that 

country on the same footing as other colonies. 
3* 



30 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

There is a degree of absurdity at present in the 
election of the council. I cannot, Sir, disagree with 
the noble lord, nor can I think he will do a better 
thing, than to put an end to their town meetings, 
I would not have men of a mercantile cast consider 
themselves as ministers of that country. I would 
not have such men every day collecting themselves 
together, and debating about political matters. I 
would have them follow their occupations as mer- 
chants, and not consider themselves as ministers. — - 
You have. Sir, no government — no governor ; the 
whole are the proceedings of a tumultuous and 
riotous rabble, who ought, if they had the least pru- 
dence, to follow their mercantile employments, and 
not trouble themselves with politics and govern- 
ment, which they do not undersland. 

" We are told by some gentlemen, ' Oh ! do not 
break the charter ! do not take away their rights, 
that are granted to them by the predecessors of the 
crown ! ' Whoever, Sir, wishes to preserve such 
charters, without a due correction and regulation — 
whoever wishes for such subjects, I wish them no 
worse than to govern them. Put this people. Sir, on 
a free footing of government ; do not let us be ev- 
ery day asserting our rights by words, and they de- 
nying our authority, and preventing the execution 
of our laws. Let us persevere in refining that gov- 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 31 

ernment, which cannot support itself, and proceed 
in the manner we have begun, and I make no doubt, 
but by a manly and steady perseverance things may 
be restored from a state of anarchy and confusion 
to peace, quietude, and a due obedience to the lavi^s 
of this country." 

As Sackville thus supported the measures of the 
administration in regard to America, and as he had 
talents and firmness, lord North solicited his aid in 
the ministry, and he was appointed Secretary for 
the American department September 7, 1775, in 
the place of lord Dartmouth removed. Sackville 
soon appointed Richard Cumberland the under 
secretary instead of Mr. Pownall, and Mr. D'Oyley 
his confidential secretary. 

That to lord Sackville must be ascribed, in the 
American revolutionary war, the employment of 
the Indians, reckless of their barbarous mode of 
warfare, there is conclusive evidence. Mr. Bisset, 
in his History of the Reign of king George III, says, 
— " The plan of the expedition through the wilds 
of America was concerted in London between gen- 
eral Burgoyne and lord George Germain. It was 
agreed, that besides regular troops, Indian savages 
should be employed by the British commander. " * — 

« Bisset, ii, 324. 



dZ JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

" The force required by Burgoyne, was 8000 reg- 
ulars, 2000 Canadians, and 1000 Indians." 

After the defeat of Burgoyne Mr. Burke in 1778 
moved an inquiry concerning the employment of 
the Indians. In a debate in the House of Commons 
December 6, 1779, colonel Barre said, — " He had 
information, that colonel Butler had been defeated 
and taken, and the remains of his army and the 
vanquished Indians had fled for shelter into Niaga- 
ra ; that the Indian towns had been burnt, and 
probably, that the consequence would be, the total 
extirpation of the Indians in that part of America. 
[ Here lord George Germain ^shook his head.] 
The noble lord might shake his head, if he pleas- 
ed, but the fact was, as he had stated it; and now 
that he was up, he would tell the noble lord another 
particular, which was, that the horrid and cruel war, 
urged by colonel Butler, was planned at a house in 
Pall Mall [meaning his lordship's], at the instigation 
of a certain agent ; and what was more extraordi- 
nary, to that instant had never been regularly com- 
municated to the cabinet council, or, if it had, not 
till long after order had been given to carry it into 
execution. [Lord George Germain shook his head 
again.] The noble lord was at liberty to give what 
tokens of dissent he thought proper ; but he was 
ready to make his assertions good. He knew colo- 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 33 

nel Butler, when he served in America ; he was a 
good officer and a worthy man. He did not know, 
how he had been prevailed upon to undertake so 
infamous a service, as that of carrying fire and 
sword into the settlements of his fellow subjects, 
and permitting those horrid acts, which are the con- 
comitants of this species of war, when savages are 
gratified with their cruel pastimes and their thirst of 
human blood." 

To this Germain made no answer. It is not easy 
to reconcile his silence with his innocence. It may 
be just therefore to associate the name of Sackville 
and the fame of Junius with the horrors of Wyoming. 
As Sackville planned the Indian incursions on 
our frontier settlements, we may suffer William Pitt, 
the younger, to crown him with merited laurels ; — 
" He was persuaded and would affirm, that it was an 
accursed, wicked, barbarous, cruel, unnatural, un- 
just, and diabolical war. It was conceived in injus- 
tice; it was nurtured and brought forth in folly; 
its footsteps were marked with blood, slaughter, 
persecution, and devastation ; in truth, every thing, 
which went to constitute moral depravity and human 
turpitude, were to be found in it." 



55 * 



* Pitt's Speech, 1781. — Horace Walpole, in his Correspon- 
dence, says, January 15, 1775, he does not wish— Ho 



34 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

As minister, Sackville was immoveable in his pur- 
pose of prosecuting the American war to the last 
extremity in accordance with the views of his sove- 
reign, and determined never to acknowledge the 
independence of the colonies. In fact his continu- 
ance in office and that of North depended on the 
result of the war. On Sunday November 25, 
1781, he received intelligence of the surrender of 
the British forces at York Town. He immediately 
rode to lord North's, who received the intelligence 
' as he would have taken a ball in his breast,' for he 
paced his apartment, exclaiming wildly many times, 
and profanely, not devoutly, — ' Oh ! — it is all over i ' 
We may well smile at this grief of the prime minis- 
ter on the loss of his office ; for the event, which 
occasioned his agony, gave independence to Amer- 
ica. 

Early in February 1782 lord George Germain re- 
signed his office, on which occasion the king,' in 
reward of his faithful services, raised him to the 
dignity of the peerage, and created him ' Viscount 
Sackville and Baron Bolebrook.' In consequence 
of this honor lord Osborne, the Marquis of Car- 
marthen, made a motion in the House of Lords to 

breathe out fire and sword against the Americans, like 
that second duke of Alva — the inflexible lord G . . . . G . . . . 
[George Germain.] ' 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 35 

prevent Sackville- from taking his seat, on account 
of the censure of the court martial, deeming his 
admission a disgrace to the house. The motion 
was supported by the earl of Sherburne, the duke 
of Grafton, the earl of Abingdon, and the duke of 
of Richmond, but was lost by a vote of 75 to 28. 

On this occasion the earl of Abingdon said — 
" The person, who was the subject of this motion, 
had been the greatest criminal this cou' try ever 
knew. He had been the author of all the calami- 
ties of the war, and all the distresses, which Great 
Britain now groaned under. It was to his blood- 
thirstiness, his weakness, his wickedness, and his 
mismanagement, that the war had been prosecuted 
at so large a waste of blood and treasure, and with 
such a miserable repetition of ill successes. He 
ought not therefore to be suffered to come into that 
house and to contaminate the peerage." 

A second motion of the marquis of Carmarthen 
to censure the ministers, who advised his Majesty 
to bestow the peerage on Sackville, was supported 
by the duke of Grafton, his brother, lord South- 
ampton (formerly colonel Fitzroy), the earl of 
Abingdon, the earl of Derby, and the duke of Rich- 
mond ; but was lost by a great majority. Nearly 
all who were in the minority, had been attacked by 
Junius. 



36 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

The speech of Saekville was powerful, and, as 
was admitted by his enemies, a speech as dignified, 
as was ever made withia the walls of the house. 
The following are extracts from it : — " To bestow 
honors was the peculiar, the indisputable, the admit- 
ted prerogative of the crown, when the person, on 
whom those honors were bestowed, was competent 
to receive them. He held himself to be in every 
way competent to receive the honors, he had been 
so fortunate as to experience at the hands of his 
royal master, and he was ready to rest the whole of 
the question on his being able to prove in any man- 
ner, in any place, and on any occasion whatever, 
that he was the person so competent. The motion 
stated the sentence of the court martial, as the 
ground of objection to his being made a peer : 
he was ready to meet the argument on that point, 
and to contend, that the sentence amounted to no 
disqualification whatever. The court martial, which 
pronounced that sentence, had sat two and twenty 
years ago, and he conceived those of their lord- 
ships, and the public in general, who were at all ac- 
quainted with the peculiarly hard and unfair cir- 
cumstances, that had attended his being tried at all, 
had long been accustomed to see the whole of that 
business in its true point of view. What had been 
the temper of those times ? Faction and clamor 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 37 

predominated : they both ran against him, and he 
had been made the victim of the most unexampled 
persecution, that ever a Brhish officer had been 
pursued with. In the first place, he had been con- 
demned unheard, punished before trial. Stripped 
of all his military honors and emoluments upon 
mere rumor, upon the malicious suggestions of his 
enemies, without their having been called upon to 
exhibit the smallest proof of their loose assertion 
and acrimonious invective : he stood pointed out to 
the world, as a man easy to be run down by clamor, 
and to fall a sacrifice to faction. Thus cruelly 
circumstanced, thus made to suffer in a manner 
equally unparalleled and unjust ; what had been his 
conduct ? Had he fled, like a guilty man, and hid 
himself from the world ? Many of their lordships 
well knew, that he had acted in a manner directly 
opposite. He had challenged his accusers to come 
forward ; he had provoked enquiry ; he had insist- 
ed upon a trial. — What could their lordships ima- 
gine induced him to persevere in this step with so 
much firmness, but a consciousness of his innocence ? 
It was that and that alone, which bore him up un- 
der the cruel difficulties he had to encounter, and 
that made him submit patiently to the consequence." 
— " In 1765 he had been called to the Privy Coun- 
cil, and brought into office. Previous to his ac- 
4 



38 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

cepting the offers, that were then made to him, of 
taking a part in the administration of that day, it 
had been agreed, that he should be first called to 
the Council-board, which he had ever considered 
as a virtual repeal of the sentence of the court- 
martial. He had continued a member of the Privy 
Council for ten years without hearing a word of the 
court-martial, or its being thought by any means a 
disqualification. Several years ago his Majesty had 
honored him so far, as to appoint him to the high 
office of Secretary of State, an office, which he 
had filled ever since, without hearing a word of the 
sentence. Let their lordships then consider the 
hardship of that sentence being urged against him, 
as a disqualification for a seat in that house, which 
had been deemed no disqualification whatever of 
his being a privy counsellor and a secretary of 
state ; two situations surely of more dignity and of 
more importance, considering the form of the Brit- 
ish constitution, than even a peerage, high and dig- 
nified as the honor undoubtedly was : nor did the 
matter of hardship merely consist in bringing the 
sentence forward now, but the making it a ground 
of censure. Would their lordships sanction, con- 
firm, and aggravate a sentence, pronounced by a 
court-military, without having the whole of the case 
before them ? That would be to make the military 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 39 

law, sufficiently severe as it confessedly was at 
present, ten times more severe, by annexing to its 
judgment the censure of a civil court of judi- 
cature. 

" From the time he was called to the Privy 
Council to the present moment, and especially since 
he had accepted of that high office, he had en- 
deavored to serve his king and country to the best 
of his judgment. He would not pretend to cope 
with any man in respect to abilities : there were 
many, he was persuaded, more able than himself; 
but there were points, in which he would not yield 
to all, who had before been in the 'service of the 
crown. He defied any man to prove, that the 
public ever had a servant, who had showed more 
unremitting assiduity, more close attention to the 
duties of his situation, or more zeal for promoting 
the interests of the country, than he had done, 
from the moment of his accepting the high office, 
he had lately filled till his resignation of it. 

" With regard to the court-martial, it was im- 
possible for him to procure a revision of the pro- 
ceeding : it happened two and twenty years since, 
and every member, who sat upon it, excepting two 
very respectable characters, lord Robert Manners 
and lord Bertie, had been dead and buried long 
ago : any attempt to investigate the motives, which 



40 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

actuated the several members of the court, was now 
impracticable ; but after what he had said, he 
flattered himself, their lordships, in general, would 
agree with him, that he was a person competent to 
receive the honors his Majesty had been graciously 
pleased to bestow upon him ; — and that it was 
neither expedient, necessary, nor becoming for that 
house to fly in the face of the indisputable prerog- 
ative of the crown, merely because the crown 
thought proper to bestow a reward on an old 
servant." 

It was with difiiculty Sackville was restrained 
from challenging the marquis of Carmarthen. Cum- 
berland says — " The well known circumstances, 
that occurred upon the event of his elevation to the 
peerage, made a deep and painful impression on his 
feeling mind ; and if his seeming patience under 
the infliction of it should appear to merit, in a 
moral sense, the name of virtue, that he had no 
title to be credited for, inasmuch as it was entirely 
owing to the influence of some, who overruled his 
propensities, and made themselves responsible for 
his honor, that he did not betake himself to the 
same abrupt, unv/arrantable mode of dismissing this 
insult, as he had resorted to in a former instance." 

He yielded to the remonstrances of some of his 
nearest friends, particularly of lord Amherst. Cum- 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 41 

berland adds, with a mixture of absurdity and truth, 
— " Though possessing one of the hest and kindest 
hearts, that ever beat within a human breast, he was 
with difficuhy diverted from resorting a second time 
to that desperate remedy, which modern empirics 
have prescribed for wounds of a peculiar sort, often- 
times imaginary and ahvays to be cured by pa- 
tience." 

During the remainder of his days Sackville hved 
at Drayton in Northamptonshire, or at Bolebrook 
near Tunbridge Wells, but principally at his beauti- 
ful mansion, Stoneland Park, now Buckhurst Park, 
near the parish of Withyham in Sussex. Though 
suffering much by a painful malady, the stone, he 
was very punctual in all his domestic arrangements. 
According to Mr. Cumberland — " As sure as the 
hand of the clock pointed to the half hour after nine, 
did the good lord of the castle step into his break- 
fast room, accoutred at all points, according to his 
own invariable costume, with a complacent coun- 
tenance, that prefaced his good morning to each 
person there assembled. — He allowed an hour and 
an half for breakfast, and regularly at 11 took 
his morning's circuit on horseback at a foot's-pace, 
for his infirmity would not allow of a strong gesta- 
tion. He never rode out without preparing him- 
self with a store of sixpences in his waistcoat pocket 
4* 



42 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

for the children of the poor, who opened gates and 
drew out sliding bars for him in his passage through, 
the enclosures." 

He was very kind to the poor cottagers, his ten- 
ants, replacing their losses, and furnishing relief in 
sickness. 

" To his religious duties this good man was not 
only regularly but respectfully attentive. On the 
Sunday morning he appeared in gala, as if he were 
dressed for a drawing-room ; he marched out his 
whole family in grand cavalcade to his parish 
church, leaving only a centinel to watch the fires at 
home, and mount guard upon the spits. His de- 
portment in the house of prayer was exemplary, 
and more in character of times past than of time 
present. He had a way of standing up in sermon 
time, for the purpose of reviewing the congregation 
and awing the idlers into decorum, that never failed 
to remind me of Sir Roger de Coverley at church. 
Sometimes, when he has been struck with passages 
in the discourse, which he wished to point out to the 
audience as rules for moral practice worthy to be 
noticed, he would mark his approbation of them 
with such cheering nods and signals of assent to the 
preacher, as were often more than ray muscles could 
withstand. — In his zeal to encourage a very young 
preacher, the Rev. Henry EatofF, I heard him cry 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 



out, to the overthrow of all gravity, in the middle of 
the sermon, ' Well^one, Harry ! ' It was irresistible. 
Yet he had an unmoved sincerity of manner ; and 
was surprised, that any thing provoked laughter." 

" He had nursed up with no small care and cost, 
in each of his parish churches, a corps of rustic 
psalm-singers, to whose performances he paid the 
greatest attention, rising up, and with his eyes di- 
rected to the singing-gallery, marking time, which 
was not always rigidly adhered to ; and once, when 
his ear, which was very correct, had been tortured 
by a tone most glaringly discordant, he set his mark 
upon the culprit by calling out to him by name, and 
loudly saying, ' Out of tune, Tom Baker ! ' Now 
this faulty musician, Tom Baker, happened to be his 
lordship's butchery but then, in order to set names 
and trades upon a par, Tom Butcher was his lord- 
ship's baker ; which, I observed to him, was much 
such a reconcilement of cross-partners, as my illus- 
trious friend, George Faulkner, hit upon, when in 
his Dublin Journal he printed, — * Erratum in our 
last — For His Grace the Duchess of Dorset, read, 
Her grace the Duke of Dorset.' 

" He died August 26, 1785, at Stoneland, aged 69 
years. It was not long after he had made an able 
speech on the Irish question. A few days before 
his death, he inquired ' if lord Mansfield was then at 



44 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

the Wells,' and solicited an interview. Being visit- 
ed by Mansfield, he, as a dying man, very solemnly 
asked his forgiveness. A becoming and satisfac- 
tory reply was made ; and the visiter departed. 

" As I knew he had been some time meditating 
upon his preparations to receive the sacrament, and 
death seemed near at hand, I reminded him of it ; 
he declared himself ready ; in one instance only, he 
confessed, it cost him a hard struggle. What that 
instance was, he needed not to explain to me, nor 
am I careful to explain to any. I trust, according 
to the infirmity of man's nature, he is rather to be 
honored for having finally extinguished his resent- 
ment, than condemned for having fostered it too 
long. A Christian saint would have done it sooner; 
how many men would not have done it ever ! 

"The Rev. Mr. Sackville Bayle, his worthy par- 
ish priest, and ever faithful friend, administered the 
solemn office of the sacrament to him, reading at his- 
request the prayers for a communicant at the point 
of death. He had ordered all his bed curtains to 
be opened and the sashes thrown up, that he might 
have air and space to assist him in his efforts ; what 
they were, with what devotion he joined in those 
solemn prayers, that warn the parting spirit to dis- 
miss all hopes, that centre in this world, that rever- 
end friend can witness. 1 also was a witness and a: 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 45 

partaker : none else was present at that holy cere- 
mony." 

A brass plate on his coffin in the vault of the 
church is the only record of " George Viscount 
Sackville and Baron Bolebrook." No monumental 
marble is entrusted with his name ; yet, if it shall be 
proved, that he was the author of the letters of 
Junius, his name may have an imperishable honor 
in the memory of the admirers of intellect and 
genius, and an imperishable infamy in the memory 
of all, who detest the malignant passions and the 
struggles of misguided and low ambition. 



CHAPTER lU. 

Presumptive Argument to show, that SacJcville was 
Junius. 

1. The suspicion of being the author of Junius 
rested at the time more on lord George Sackville, 
than on any other person. — It has already been sta- 
ted, that on the denial of Burke, Sir William Draper 
transferred his suspicions entirely to Sackville. Mr. 
Woodfall, the printer, at times suspected Sackville. 
Others entertained the same belief. An able writer, 
under the signature of Titus, in defending the mar- 
quis of Granby against Junius, says of him — " He 
knows how to obey : he knows, that a good soldier 
never disputes the commands of his superior.'''' — Also, 
— " It matters not, whether the malicious dart be 
pointed from the closet of a disgraced soldier," Sic. 
*' You know, Junius, that he feared not to lead on 
the cavalry at Minden." Here are obvious intima- 
tions, that the writer believed lord Sackville to be 
the author of the letters of Junius. This general 
suspicion ought to be considered as of much weight, 
inasmuch as many grounds for the belief may have 
existed at the time, which are now lost, and as con- 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 47 

temporaries were the best judges of talents and mo- 
tives and of all the probabilities of the case. 

2. Lord George Sackville possessed the requisite 
talents and learning. — I am aware, that Richard 
Cumberland, who was secretary under Sackville, 
has expressed his belief, that his lordship was defi- 
cient in classical attainments and was incapable of 
writing the letters of Junius. But of his qualifica- 
tions others, who knew his lordship at an earlier 
period, were more competent to judge. Educated 
at Trinity College, Dublin, and having afterwards 
much leisure, no one can imagine, that lord Sack- 
ville could not easily have made that acquaintance, 
with the classical writers of antiquity, which Junius 
exhibits. As to his intellectual powers the testimo- 
ny is ample. Lord Orford, speaking of Sackville 
in 1758, says — he was " now rising to a principal 
figure. His abilities in the House of Commons and 
his interest with Pitt gave him great weight in gov- 
ernment." — He said also — " Lord G. Sackville was 
a man of very sound parts, of distinguished bravery, 
and of as honorable eloquence : " — and speaking of a 
com.mission of inquiry, in which Sackville was asso- 
ciated in 1757 with the duke of Marlborough and 
general Waldegrave, he remarks, that he " was more 
than a balance to the other two in abilities." — Sir 
N. Wraxall says, " Mr. Pitt styled lord George 



48 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

Germain the Agamemnon of the day ; " — also in 
regard to his speech on a motion relating to his be- 
ing created a viscount — " His enemies confessed, 
that never was a more able, dignified, or manly ap- 
peal made within the walls of the House of Peers, 
than lord Sackville pronounced on that occasion." 
A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, September 
1785, speaks of him as " a man of extraordinary 
talent," — his pen is said to be "all-powerful;" — 
" he had the art of painting in words to a very 
eminent degree, and which afforded the finest orna- 
ments in either poetry, history, or elocation." In 
the debates in the House of Commons from 1775 
to 1782 he displayed signal abilities. He entered 
the lists with Fox. Even Mr. Cumberland re- 
marks, that he " never suffered the clearness of his 
conceptions to be clouded by any obscurity of ex- 
pressions." 

Mr. Bisset says of Sackville, — " This nobleman, 
after his retirement from military life, had devoted 
himself to political affairs ; he was an acute reason- 
er, and a respectable speaker, distinguished for 
closeness of argument, precision, and neatness of 
language. He had been principally connected with 
Mr. Grenville, supported him when he was minister, 
and followed him into opposition. He had vindicat- 
ed the supremacy of parliament, voted against the 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 49 

Stamp act, and against its repeal ; and had shown 
himself extremely inimical to the Grafton adminis- 
tration. From that circumstance, together with his 
reputed abilities, he was by many deemed the au- 
thor of Junius. For several years after Mr. Gren- 
ville's death he had continued in opposition ; but in 
1773 he joined the ministry in the East India affairs, 
and took a decided part in the coercive measures 
of 1774 and 1775."* 

Lord Walsingham, in defending the elevation of 
Germain to the peerage, said of him — " His abilities 
are equal to those of most men and I believe infe- 
rior to none." Lord Shelburne charged him with 
having failed as to the war, but gave him credit for 
having held a " more manly style of language, than 
any other minister, and with having acted uniformly 
with the nicest feelings, the strictest honor, the most 
unimpeachable integrity, and the most distinguished 
abilities.'''' 

Sir N. Wraxall says — " In business lord George 
Germain was rapid, yet clear and accurate ; rather 
negligent in his style, which was that of a gentleman 
and a man of the world, unstudied and frequently 
careless, even in his official despatches. But there 
was no obscurity or ambiguity in his compositions." 

* Bisset, ii, 219. 



50 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

3. Lord George Sackville felt the Influence of 
those strong Motives, which only can account for 
the letters of Junius. — The writer was evidently 
stimulated by bitter personal hostility towards those, 
whom he assailed, — by keen indignation, arising 
from a sense of wrong, — and at the same time by 
an irrepressible ambition and desire of gaining for 
himself office or rank. The hostility and indigna- 
tion are every where seen in the letters. The am- 
bition and thirst for power must be supposed in 
order to account for his persevering attempt to 
overthrow the ministry ; but it is betrayed in his 
private letters. In one to Woodfall he says — " I 
doubt much, whether I shall ever have the pleasure 
of knowing you ; but, if things take the turn I ex- 
pect, you shall know me by my works.^^ — " It is 
true I have refused offers, which a more prudent or 
a more interested man would have accepted." — 
The expected turn was doubtless a revolution in the 
ministry ; and the works alluded to may be the 
great things he should accomplish, after he should 
gain a high office. In his first letter to Wilkes he 
says — " Though I do not disclaim the idea of some 
personal views to future honor and advantage, yet I 
can truly say, that neither are they litde in them- 
selves," &IC. 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 51 

The natural temper of Sackville was irascible, 
and after his unjust degradation from military rank 
and service, he would feel indignant towards all, 
who contributed in any way to his disgrace. 

The marquis of Granby, who is attacked in the 
first letter of Junius, was under Sackville at the 
battle of Minden. He was commended by prince 
Ferdinand at the expense of Sackville : — " I re- 
gret, that the marquis of Granby had not the com- 
mand of the British cavalry. Had he commanded 
I make no doubt the success of the day had been 
much more complete and brilliant." — The duke of 
Grafton is assaulted by Junius with the utmost vio- 
lence ; the principal witness against lord Sackville 
was colonel Fitzroy, brother of the duke of Graf- 
ton. — Junius assails lord Mansfield ; — the judge 
was the legal adviser of lord Sackville before his 
trial, and assured him, that he could not be con- 
demned. He was mistaken in his opinion, and 
Sackville might even suspect him of treachery. — 
Junius maintained the necessity of impeaching 
Mansfield ; and Sackville in a speech, December 
6, 1770, supported a motion to inquire into the 
administration of criminal justice. — Junius had an 
embittered hostility towards Scotchmen ; it appears, 
that a majority of the officers, constituting the court 
martial for the trial of lord George, were Scotch- 



52 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 



men. He had also passed a year in Scotland in 
the campaign against the rebels. — The most con- 
spicuous persons attacked by Junius, are the men, 
who were the agents in Sackville's disgrace, or 
who succeeded to the places, which he held, or 
gained the offices, which he might well expect : 
— the marquis of Granby, colonel Fitzroy, lord 
George Townsend, lord Charles Manners, the 
duke of Bedford, and others. — Of Sackville's am- 
bition nothing need be said. 

4. The author of Junius had been a soldier, 
as Sackville had been. — In a private letter, Au- 
gust 25, 1767, Junius says of the Townsends — 
" I am not a stranger to this par nobile fratrum. 
I have served under the one and have been forty 
times promised to be served by the other." It 
is known, that he served with lord Townsend at 
Dettingen. — The perpetual military allusions in 
Junius prove, that the writer had been a soldier. 
Of instances the following may be given : — " That 
was the salient point, from which all the mis- 
chiefs and disgraces of the present reign took 
life and motion." — " Place them in the post of 
danger, to prevent desertion." — " The wary Wed- 
derburne, the pompous Suffolk, never threw away 
the scabbard, nor ever went upon a forlorn hope." 
— " If you consider the dignity of the post he 



JUNIUS UNMASKEB. 53 

deserted, you will hardly think it decent to quarter 
him on Mr. Rigby." — " I may quit the service, 
but it would be absurd to suspect me of deser- 
tion." — " We cannot hinder their desertion, but 
we can prevent their carrying over their arms to 
the service of the enemy." — " Not daring to attack 
the main body of Junius' last letter, he triumphs 
in having, as he thinks, surprised an outpost and cut 
off a detached argument, a mere straggling propo- 
sition. But even in this petty warfare he shall find 
himself defeated.^'' — "His palace is besieged; the 
lines of circumvallation are drawing round him." — 
I could exhibit many more such military allusions, 
were it necessary. I think these prove the writer 
to have been a soldier. This is also proved by the 
intimate acquaintance of Junius with the affairs of 
the war office and the concerns of the army. Who 
but a soldier could possibly feel, as Junius felt, on 
the appointment of Mr. Luttrell as adjutant gen- 
eral : — " The insult offered to the army in general 
is as gross, as the outrage intended to the people 
of England. What ! lieutenant colonel Luttrell 
adjutant general of an army of sixteen thousand 
men !" — 

5. Lord Sackville had the friendships and ani- 
mosities, which are indicated by the letters of Ju- 
nius. — By the letter of September 20, 1768 and other 
5* 



54 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

letters it appears, that Junius was the friend of Sir 
Jeff ery Amherst : — " You have sent Sir Jeffery Am- 
herst to the plough," &ic. It is understood, that 
Sackville and Amherst were intimate from child- 
hood ; they lived together in Ireland ; and, after 
Sackville became secretary of state Amherst was 
appointed commander in chief and created a baron. 
Sir Jeffery had a brother, to whom the name of 
Sackville was given. 

From Junius' letter of August 22, 1770, it ap- 
pears, that he was the friend of colonel Cunning- 
hame, adjutant general of Ireland. — Lord Sackville 
became acquainted with Cunninghame during the 
campaign in Scotland, and, it is believed, was al- 
ways friendly to him. 

Junius, as appears by his letters August 6, 1768, 
and December 15, 1768, and January 21, 1770, 
was an admirer of Mr. Grenville. Lord Sackville, 
if not personally acquainted with Mr. Grenville, yet 
had for him a political friendship. He said Feb- 
ruary 25, 1774, in a speech — " The author of this 
bill, Mr. G., had preserved a good name, while in 
ofBce, and when out : and he sincerely hoped the 
noble lord would endeavor to have his name handed 
down to posterity, with the same honor, as Mr. 
Grenville had." 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 55 

Junius expresses a respect for the character of 
Mr. Sawbridge, and recommends his appointment 
as lord mayor, in a letter to Wilkes. On the suc- 
cess of Mr. Nash he says in a letter to Mr. Wood- 
fall — " What an abandoned, prostituted idiot is your 
lord mayor ? " 

Now it is known, that Sackville was on terms of 
friendship with Mr. Sawbridge. Their estates were 
contiguous in Kent, adjoining that of lord Amherst. 
Sackville represented Hythe from 1760 to 1768, 
when he resigned in favor of Mr. Sawbridge, and by 
his exertions procured his election. 

Junius in February, 1772, speaks of " general 
Fowke as a brave and worthy man." It is known, 
that Sackville was the friend of the general. 

Junius was at first very hostile to the earl of 
Chatham, although he at last bestowed upon him 
his high commendation. It appears, that Sackville 
had offended Mr. Pitt : — for having been sent, with 
the duke of Marlborough, on an expedition to the 
coast of France, and afterwards being offered by 
Mr. Pitt the command of the expedition to St. Cas, 
he replied imprudently — " he was tired of bucca- 
neering.''^ He insisted upon going to Germany ; 
but his sarcasm was remembered. It was during 
the administration of Mr. Pitt, that his disgrace oc- 
curred. Mr. Pitt immediately adopted the senti- 



56 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

ments of prince Ferdinand, and prosecuted the Ger- 
man war with vigor. Sackville regarded the war as 
utterly ineffectual and foolish. 

Junius violently attacked the duke of Bedford. 
One cause of Sackville's enmity to the family is al- 
luded to by lord Orford : — " The house of Bedford, 
from reasons of family, were not his well-wishers. 
The sister of the duchess of Bedford had married 
lord John Sackville, and had quarrelled with lord 
George. " Another reason was, that on the duke 
was bestowed an office in Ireland, of which Sack- 
ville, at the time of his disgrace, was deprived. 

The hostility of Junius to the princess Dowager 
and lord Bute is evident from the letter of 19 De- 
cember, 1769 and other letters. After Sackville's 
disgrace, although he had been familiar with the 
prince of Wales, afterwards George III., yet he was 
prohibited from seeing him by the princess Dowager 
and lord Bute. The attack of lord Bute by the 
North Briton shortly afterwards is in correspon- 
dence with the indignant feelings of Sackville. 

6. It can hardly be doubted, that Junius was a 
member of the House of Commons, as was Sack- 
ville. — Junius says, 28 May, 1770 — "The speaker 
began with pretended ignorance, and ended with 
deciding for the ministry. We were not surprised 
at the decision ; but he hesitated and blushed at his 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 57 

own baseness, and every man was astonished." — 
23 April, 1771. — "Yet we have seen him in the 
House of Commons overwhelmed with confusion 
and almost bereft of his faculties." — 13 December, 
1770 — " The exclusion is made general ; their lord- 
ships very properly considering, that the members 
of the House of Commons are no more fit to be 
trusted with the debates of a public assembly, than 
the spies or emissaries of a foreign ambassador, or 
so many Jesuits in disguise." — 19 November, 1770 
— " A few days ago I was in a large public compa- 
ny, where there happened some curious conversa- 
tion. — He [the secretary at war] assured us, that 
after having carefully, &c. — and for fear we should 
not believe him, repeated and enforced his assertion 
five several times." August 15, 1771 — ''My note 
will hardly recommend him to an increase of his 
pension, or a seat in the cabinet." — October 5, 
1771. — " I willingly accept of a sarcasm from colo- 
nel Barre, or a simile from Mr. Burke ; even the 
silent vote of Mr. Calcraft is worth reckoning in a 
division." 

7. Lord Sackville held the political sentiments, 
expressed by Junius. — That Junius was an advocate 
of triennial parliaments appears by his letter of Sep- 
tember 7, 1771. A motion for triennial parliaments 
was lost in the House of Commons March 4, 1772, 



58 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

by a large majority , but Sackville voted in favor of 
it. — ^Junius supported the American stamp act ; of 
which he says in his letter December 19, 1767, — 
" The people, who were most clamorous against it, 
either never understood, or wilfully misrepresented 
every part of it." Lord Sackville, in reply to Burke 
March 7, 1774, said — The honorable gentleman 
has extolled " those, who advised the repeal of the 
stamp act. For my part—/ was of opinion, that it 
should not he repealed, and voted accordingly.''^ — 
" The people there must and would have returned 
to their obedience, if the stamp act had not been 
unfortunately repealed." (Cobbett's Pari. Deb.) — 
Junius was in favor of repealing the duty on tea : — 
" It ought to be repealed as an impolitic act, not as 
an oppressive one." Letter to Wilkes 7 Septem- 
ber, 1771. Lord Sackville said January 26, 1775 
— " If the Americans would petition for their repeal, 
he would stretch forth the first hand to present it ; 
but, on the contrary, if they claimed such a repeal 
as a right, thereby disputing the authority of the 
mother country, which no reasonable man ever 
called in question, he wished it might be enforced 
with a Roman severit}^" — Junius was opposed " to 
cutting away the rotten boroughs." Letter Septem- 
ber 7, 1771, It is probable, lord Sackville was of 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 59 

the same opinion, for he sat in parliament for his 
own borough of East Grinstead. 

8. Junius was not an Irishman, yet had lived in 
Ireland, — as was the case with lord Sackville. — 
Junius speaks of the Irish as " a barbarous people" 
in his letter September 16, 1767. — He says also — 
" a blush seldom tinges those happy countenances, 
which have been bathed in the LifFey," June 16, 
1769. He speaks also of Englishmen and dedi- 
cates his letters to the English nation. After men- 
tioning the people of England, he adds — our coun- 
trymen. — He alludes also ironically to ' Irish virtue,' 
November 27, 1771. 

Some reasons for believing, that Junius had lived 
in Ireland, have already been given. In respect to 
his language he had himself been dipped in the 
waters of " the Liffey." He was tinged so early, 
that with all his care he could not get rid entirely of 
the hue. Sackville in the use of the word so is 
rather Irish than English : — " We have had no let- 
ters from Holland for some days, so we do not know, 
whether the French have attempted any thing." — 
Letter January 15, 1748. 

9. Junius was not a lawyer, but a gentleman of 
rank and independent fortune ; which may be af- 
firmed of lord Sackville. — "Though I use the 
terms of art, do not injure me so much, as to sus- 



60 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

pect I am a lawyer, — I had as lief be a Scotch- 
man." Letter to Wilkes September 18, 1771. He 
has other keen remarks concerning lawyers. — In his 
letter of April 12, 1769, Junius says — " You, I think, 
may be satisfied, that my rank and fortune place me 
above a common bribe." This letter, for some rea- 
son, though signed by the name of Junius, was omit- 
ted on the publication of the letters in a volume ; 
probably because it might awaken suspicions as to 
the ranh of the writer. — In his letter to Sir William 
Draper he says — " I should have hoped, that even 
my name might carry some authority with it, if I had 
not seen," &;c. — Now, would a person, whose name 
was actually of no weight in the world, be likely to 
write in this manner ? — I think it also incredible, 
that any person should speak of king George lU., 
as Junius spake of him, unless he was a man of 
rank, who had lived in personal intercourse with 
him, if not when king, yet before : — " I know that 
man much better than any of you. Nature intend- 
ed him only for a good-humored fool. A systemat- 
ical education, with long practice, has made him a 
consummate hypocrite." Letter 24 July, 1771. 
Mr. Coventry states, that Sackvilie had " an oppor- 
tunity of knowing the disposition, talents, and char- 
acter of the young king, from having been so much 
in his company previous to his disgrace." If lord 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 61 

George Sackville had a few years before repaired 
very humbly to court to kiss the hands of this fool 
and hypocrite, " whom every honest man should de- 
test," it will be more easy to find an explanation in 
the temper of a courtier and the meanness of ambi- 
bition, than to account for such language concerning 
his king from a person, who had never had inter- 
course with him. 

As to \~i\s fortune, Junius would never receive any 
of the profits of the Letters, though offered by 
Woodfall. He said — " I am far above all pecunia- 
ry views." He also assured Woodfall, in reference 
to a prosecution, — "in point of money be assured 
you shall never suffer." 

10. One of the letters of Junius had written upon 
it, near the signature, the words Pall Mall; in 
which street, it is known, was the house of lord 
Sackville. A letter of Sackville to lord Viscount 
Bateman is dated thus — "Pall Mall, September 18, 
1759." The letter of Junius, referred to, is dated 
May 8, 1772, addressed to Woodfall. It was doubt- 
less through inadvertence, and not by intention, that 
he wrote Pall Mall ; which evidently betrays the 
place of his residence. Who else lived in Pall Mall, 
that has ever been suspected of writing the letters of 
Junius ? 

6 



62 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

11. In a confidential letter to Woodfall Junius 
says — " That Swinney is a wretched but a danger- 
ous fool : he had the impudence to go to lord Sack- 
ville, whom he had never spoken to, and to ask him 
whether or no he was the author of Junius — take 
care of him." This was but a day or two before 
the letter was written. If Junius was not Sackville, 
how could he know, that Swinney had never spoken 
to Sackville j and why should he use the terms im- 
pudence and fool? 

12. The deep anxiety for concealment, and the 
fixed resolution, that his secret should die with him, 
expressed by Junius, may very properly be ascribed 
to lord Sackville. — Speaking of his secret, Junius 
says — " All arts, or inquiries, or rewards will be 
equally inefiiectual." — " Upon no account — are you 
to write to me until I give you notice." — " Tell me 
candidly whether you know or suspect who I am." 
— " I am persuaded you are too honest a man to 
contribute in any way to my destruction." He said 
also, that he was sure he should not survive a discov- 
ery three days. In his dedication he says — " I am 
the sole depository of my own secret, and it shall 
perish with me." 

If lord Sackville was the writer, he had indeed 
strong reasons for concealment. A discovery, if it 
should lead to nothing worse, would blast all his 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 63 

prospects or hopes of elevation to office, and of 
effacing the undeserved infamy of the sentence of 
the court martial. And after he had compassed 
his aims ; and had been one of the ministers during 
the revolutionary war, and had been raised by king 
George to a peerage : — with what face could he 
acknowledge himself the author of letters, in which 
that most Gracious Monarch was called from per- 
sonal knowledge " a good-natured fooV^ and a 
" consummate hypocrite ; " and in which he says of 
him, that he is " as callous as a stock-fish to every 
thing but the reproach of cowardice. That alone is 
able to set the humors afloat. After a paper of that 
kind he won't eat meat for a week." 

13. Lord SacJcville, just before his death, spoke 
of his being suspected of having written the letters of 
Junius. Richard Cumberland, his secretary, says 
— " I never heard, that my friend, lord George 
Germain, was amongst the suspected authors, till by 
way of jest he told me so not many days before his 
death : I did not want him to disavow it, for there 
could be no occasion to disprove an absolute impos- 
sibility. The man, who wrote it, had a savage heart, 
for some of his attacks are execrable ; he was a 
hypocrite, for he disavows private motives, and 
makes pretensions to a patriotic spirit." 



64 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

But why should an aged man, just sinking into 
the grave, be inclined to jest at all ; or why should 
he, if not the writer, recur to an unfounded suspicion 
of having written those letters a dozen or fifteen 
years before ? But if he was the writer ; then, as 
he was about to carry with him the grand secret, 
which had been the burden of his heart for so many 
years, it would occupy many of his thoughts ; and 
he might wish to know once more, whether any sus- 
picion in regard to him lingered in the world ; — and 
therefore might have spoken on the subject to Cum- 
berland. If Cumberland uttered to him, what he 
has said in his book, concerning the " savage heart " 
and " hypocrisy " of the author 5 the dying, old man 
would have derived very little consolation from his 
remarks. With right views he must have felt, that 
he had purchased his peerage very dearly, and ef- 
faced from his character one blot by means of one 
still deeper. Yet amidst the commingling of mo- 
tives and passions in human conduct, the author of 
Junius, while his first aim was his own elevation, 
might have experienced very just sentiments of in- 
dignation, if not of contempt, towards men, whose 
profligacy he knew 5 and might also have been in- 
fluenced by some fixed principles of politics. Yield- 
ing him all, that can be allowed, I have however 
formed a poor estimate of the moral character of 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 65 

lord Sackville. I cannot envy his feelings, as the 
vanities of the world were disappearing from before 
his eyes. 

14. Lord Sackville's last interview with lord 
Mansfield is in my opinion a proof, that he was the 
author of the letters of Junius. 

Sackville had not been on terms of intimacy with 
Mansfield for some years. Yet hearing, that he was 
at Tunbridge Wells, he requested an interview at 
his own house before he died. Accordingly lord 
Mansfield repaired to Stoneland. As lord Sackville 
came in from riding and entered the room, he stag- 
gered, and there was such a death-like character in 
his countenance, as disturbed lord Mansfield and 
seemed to strike him with horror. Sackville made 
an apology for the trouble, he had given him, but 
said he, — " My good lord, though I ought not to 
have imposed upon you the painful ceremony of 
paying a last visit to a dying man ; yet so great was 
ray anxiety to return you my unfeigned thanks for 
all your goodness to me, all the kind protection you 
have shown me through the course of my unprosper- 
ous life, that I could not know you was so near me, 
and not wish to assure you of the invariable respect, 
I have entertained for your character, and now in the 
most serious manner to solicit your forgiveness, if 
6ver in the fluctuations of politics or the heats of 
6* 



66 / JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

party I have appeared in your eyes, at any moment 
of my life, unjust to your great merits or forgetful of 
your many favors." — Lord Mansfield made a be- 
coming and satisfactory reply ; and then withdrew. 

This speech, which Mr. Cumberland wrote down 
at the time, must be allowed to be a very extraordi- 
nary and mysterious one, especially as it is not 
known, that Sackviile had received favors from 
Mansfieldo But if we regard lord Sackviile as the 
author of Junius, the mystery will be cleared up. 

Let us say, that Sackviile, in the letters of Junius, 
had attacked lord Mansfield with the utmost vehe- 
mence. — " The designs of Mansfield are more 
subtle, more effectual, and secure. — Who attacks 
the liberty of the press ? — Lord Mansfield. — Who 
invades tbe constitutional power of juries ? — Ijord 
Mansfield. — What judge ever challenged a juryman 
but lord Mansfield?" he. — At the close of his long 
letter to Mansfield he says, — " Considering the situ- 
ation and abilities of lord Mansfield, I do not scruple 
to affirm, with the most solemn appeal to God for 
my sincerity, that, in my judgment, he is the very 
worst and most dangerous man in the kingdom. 
Thus far I have done my duty in endeavoring to 
bring him to punishment. But mine is an inferior 
ministerial office in the temple of justice. — I have 
bound the victim, and dragged him to the altar." — 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 67 

Such was the attempt to cause him to be impeached 
and ruined. And now the author of this attack, a 
behever in Christianity, perceives, that he is about 
to appear before God, who has forbidden the emo- 
tions and acts of hostility and the language of revil- 
ing, — and he feels it to be a duty to make some 
concessions to the man, whom he had ferociously at- 
tacked and deeply injured, and to ask his forgive- 
ness. He sends for him. Yet he cannot explain 
the precise thing, which lies as a burden on the 
mind. He deals in generaUties, and asks his par- 
don, ' if he has ever appeared in his eyes to be unjust 
to his great merits ! ' If Mansfield had no suspicion, 
that lord Sackville was the author of the letters of 
Junius, such a speech from the dying man must 
have overwhelmed him with astonishment. 

I think, there was here an amazing struggle be- 
tween stern pride and the dread of the future,, 
founded on a belief of the truth and some view of 
the nature of the Christian religion. But unless 
Sackville was Junius, it is not known, that he had 
any clamorous occasion to reconcile himself to lord 
Mansfield. 

If the circumstances, which have been mentioned, 
be now brought together, they will, I am convinced, 
be found to make a very strong case, and to render 
it extremely probable, that lord George Sackville 



68 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

was the author of the letters of Junius. Let any 
other man be supposed to be the writer, and 1 be- 
lieve it will be impossible to bring together circum- 
stances, which will create any thing of a probability 
like this. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Argument from the Comparison of Sackville's 
"Address-^ with the Letters of Junius. 

I NOW proceed to an argument, which has never 
been touched upon and is entirely new; an argu- 
ment of still greater weight, if possible, than the cir- 
cumstances stated, but, when combined with them, 
rendering it, in my opinion, certain beyond any rea- 
sonable doubt, that Sackville's secret, though he 
kept it faithfully, is no longer such. The argument, 
I speak of, is founded on co-incidences of style be- 
tween lord Sackville and Junius so striking, as to 
compel conviction. 

In September, 1759, lord Sackville published a 
" Short Address" to the public, which I read many 
years ago in Smollett's Continuation of Hume's His- 
tory of England. Short as this address is, I found 
in it many indications of the pen of Junius, and 
drew up then a paper on the subject, which is now 
before me, and from which I take the following 
comparison. I am sensible, that the whole should 
be viewed together ; and then the inquiry be made. 



70 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

whether the co-incidence is not remarkable? A 
modern writer may imitate Junius and adopt his 
phrases. Junius, if he was not Sackville, would not 
have studied his Address for the purpose of imbibing 
its style. The Address, it must be remembered, 
preceded the Letters of Junius about ten years. 

Address. " I had rather, upon this occasion, 
submit myself io all the inconveniences," Sic. 

Junius. " You are partial, perhaps, to the mili- 
tary mode of execution, and had rather see a score 
of these wretches butchered." — " Willingly submit 
myself to the judgment of my peers." 

Address. " Torrent of calumny and abuse, 
which has been so maliciously thrown out against 
me." 

Junius. " Scandalous imputations, throivn out 
by the abettors of lord Mansfield." 

Address. " Had he condescended to have in- 
quired into my conduct." 

Junius. " To have supported your assertion you 
should have proved." 

Address. " Prove my innocence, beyond the 
possibility of a doubt.'''' 

Junius. " When he sees, beyond the possibility 
of a doubt, that" &:c. 

Address. " Though I am debarred at present 
from stating my case to the public.''^ 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 71 

Junius. " Examine your conduct as a minister 
and stating it fairly to the public." — " The follow- 
ing fact, — has not yet been clearly stated to the 
public." 

Address. " The oaths of witnesses, whose ve- 
racity cannot be called in question." 

Junius. "You will not question my veracity." 

Address. " As I should have done, had I not 
assurances." 

Junius. " Will run the hazards, that he has 
done." 

Address. " When real facts are truly stated 
and fully proved." 

Junius. " The truth of his facts is of more im- 
portance." — " False in argument, true in fact." — 
" Your first fact is false." — " To inquire into the 
truth of the facts." — " Found every circumstance 
stated, to be literally true." 

Address. " I had either failed in, or neglected 
my duty." — " What can an injured officer have re- 
course to, but claiming that justice," &;c. 

Junius. " Dreadful battles, which he might have 
been engaged in, and the dangers," Sic. — " A 
weakness we may indulge in, if," he. — -" Would 
then have known what they had to trust to, and 
would never," he. — " Is at least as much as you 



72 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

are' equal to." — " Strictly conformable to, and 
founded upon the ancient law." 

Address. " The many falsehoods, which have 
been asserted." 

Junius. " Convinced of the falsehood of his as- 
sertions." — " Let sophistry evade, let falsehood as- 
sert." 

Address. " I had rather submit — to inconveni- 
ences, that may arise from the want of style, than 
borrow assistance from the pens of others." 

Junius. " I will not contend with you in point of 
composition ; you are a scholar. Sir William." — 
" As for his style, T shall leave it to the critics." — 
" He may want eloquence to amuse." — " It does not 
appear, that Junius values himself upon any superior 
shill in composition." 

Address. " That if I am guilty, I may suffer 
such punishment, as 1 may have deserved ; and, if 
innocent, that I may stand acquitted in the opinion 
of the world ; but it is really too severe to have been 
censured unheard, to have been condemned before 
I was tried, and to be informed neither of my crime 
nor my accusers." 

" But if plans of a battle are to be referred to, 
which can give no just idea of it ; if dispositions of 
the cavalry and infantry are supposed, which never 
existed ; if orders for attacks and pursuits are quot- 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 73 

ed, which never were delivered ; and if disobedi- 
ence to those imaginary orders are asserted as a 
crime ; what can an injured officer, under such cir- 
cumstances, have recourse to, but claiming that jus- 
tice, which is due to every Englishman, of being 
heard before he is condemned ? 

Junius. " Even the best of princes may at last 
discover, that this is a contention, in which every 
thing may be lost but nothing can be gained ; and 
as you became minister by accident, were adopted 
without choice, trusted without confidence, and con- 
tinued without favor, be assured, that, whenever an 
occasion presses, you will be discarded without even 
the forms of regret." — " But, my lord, you may 
quit the field of business, though not the field of 
danger, and though you cannot be safe, you may 
cease to be ridiculous." — " To write for profit with- 
out taxing the press ; to write for fame and to be 
unknown ; to support the intrigues of faction and to 
be owned as a dangerous auxiliary by every party 
in the kingdom ; are contradictions, which the minis- 
ter must reconcile, before I forfeit my credit with the 
public." 

In the last sentences, quoted from Sackville's 
Address, I am persuaded every one, who is accus- 
tomed to observe peculiarities of style, will see the 
very spirit of Junius. Doubtless some one of the 
7 



74 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

antecedent phrases and constructions may be found 
in other writers. But can all of them be found in 
any writer of that period, especially in so short a 
piece as the Address, combined with the antithesis, 
point, and force of the quoted sentences, so charac- 
teristic of Junius ? 



CHAPTER V. 

Argument from the Comparison of the " Consider- 
ations." 

In 1760 there was published at London a pam- 
phlet of 144 pages, entitled, " Considerations on the 
Present German War," which there is every reason 
to believe was written by lord Sackville. It appear- 
ed the year after the battle of Minden, and exposes 
the folly of the German war, presenting such views, 
as lord Sackville would be likely to entertain. It 
was very popular and soon reached a third edition. 
Many answers to it were published : in one of them 
•the author is addressed as "Mr., or my lord, Con- 
siderer," which perhaps is an intimation, that lord 
Sackville was regarded as the author. The Critical 
Review for January 1761, in reviewing one of these 
answers, bestows some praise upon it, but adds — 
" We doubt not, however, but the Considerer will 
be able to weather this storm with the same facility 
he has hitherto withstood all the blasts of popular 
clamor, and the destruction aimed at his head by an 
incensed multitude." Here is, doubtless, a refer- 



76 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

ence to lord Sackville. — The same Review warmly 
commends the work, as containing " a great fund 
of entertainment, instruction, curious intelligence, 
shrewd observation, laudable spirit, and real knowl- 
edge ; " and two years afterwards says, that not 
one fact or argument has been yet disproved or 
refuted. 

I propose to point out some peculiarities of style, 
proving, that the author of the "• Considerations," 
v/hich was written before the letters of Junius, was 
also the author of those letters. 

Nothing will follow from the use of single words 
and phrases, unless they are uncommon or frequent- 
ly occur ; but when thus employed in an unusual 
manner in two productions, they suggest, that the 
productions came from one pen. 

Considerations. " France has for a century 
past heen formidable to the rest of Europe." — " By 
attacking the French in their islands, by which only 
they can ever be formidable to Great Britain."— 
" Will soon grow formidable." — ■" Might have made 
them formidable to us." — " Would the crown of 
France be so very formidably wriched by the acqui- 
sition?" — " In any decree formidable to Britain." 

Junius. " Finds him, at last, too strong to be 
commanded, and too formidable to be removed." — 
" The most formidable minister, that ever was em- 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 77 

ployed, under a limited monarch, to accomplish the 
ruin of a free people." — " Armed with the sovereign 
authority, their principles zve formidahle." 

In ray opinion there is something peculiar in the 
use of this word, which is seldom used by writers of 
that period. A soldier is the character most likely 
to employ it. Junius uses it in other instances be- 
sides those quoted. 

Considerations. " That must commit them in 
eternal quarrels with every member of the Germanic 
body." 

Junius. " Without committing the honor of your 
sovereign, or hazarding the reputation of his govern- 
ment." 

Considerations. " What the amount of this is, 
/ confess I do not know." 

Junius. " When I see questions, Sec. without 
argument or decency, / confess I give up the cause in 
despair." — " Here, / confess, you have been active." 
— " And, / confess, I have not that opinion of their 
knowledge." — " But now, I confess, they are not ill 
exchanged." — " / confess I give you some credit for 
your discretion." — " Oppose their dissolution, upon 
an opinion, / confess, not very unwarrantable ; " and 
so in a dozen other instances. 

Considerations. " They are driven out of 
Germany. Be it so : was any one of the towns, 



/O JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

which they shall quit in their retreat, their's before ? '^ 
■ — " He might beat the French out of Hanover. Be 
it so. Still Britain must be at the expense." — 
" But be it so, let them both come to our aid." 

Junius. " Better suited to the dignity of your 
cause, than that of a newspaper. Be it so. Yet, 
if newspapers are scurrilous, you must confess they 
are impartial." — " Amounts to a high misdemeanor. 
Be it so : and if he deserves it, let him be punish- 
ed." — " Ought not to pass unpunished. Be it so." 

Considerations. " They found it impractica- 
ble to go any where else." — " Impracticable at- 
tempt." — " To confound a diminutive, defensive, 
ruinous, and impracticable measure." — " Impracti- 
cable task." — " Both nations see the impracticable- 
ness of bringing them over." — " Absolutely imprac" 
ticable for them to raise their navy to an equality 
with ours." 

Junius. " Let us try whether these fatal dissen- 
sions may not yet be reconciled ; or, if that be im- 
practicable, let us." — " There is no practicable re- 
treat." 

Considerations. " And who very candidly 
stated the subject, and left his hearers, if they had 
pleased, to draw the consequences." — " Though 
every thing was stated with the greatest fairness and 
precision." 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 79 

Junius. " In continuing to examine your con- 
duct as a minister, and stating it fairly to the pub- 
lic." — " If the question had been once stated with 
precision." — " Stating and refuting the objections." 
— " I mean to state, not entirely to defend his con- 
duct." 

Considerations. " JVot to mention, that in the 
present case." 

Junius. " JVot to mention a multitude of prerog- 
ative writs." 

Considerations. " Indangered, intire, intrust- 
ed, indured, inriched, imploy, intail," instead of 
" endangered," &lc. 

Junius, edition of 1783. " Intrusted, intitles," 
&c. 

Considerations. " They ought to declare no 
more than they really intend." — " Not that any 
thing of this nature really would happen." — " If we 
really think ourselves strong enough." — " Not as 
really matter of their opinion." — " But do we really 
transport troops into Germany upon as cheap terms 
as France." — " What the quantity of these really is, 
may not be easy to determine." 

Junius. " If he really be, what I think him, hon- 
est." — " Whose character I really respect." — " But 
really, Sir, this way of talking." — " Which ajEFect in- 
dividuals only, is really unworthy of your under- 



80 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

Standing." — " But really^ Sir, my honest friend's 
suppositions." — " But really, Sir, the precedent with 
respect to the guards."—" It is time for those, who 
really mean well to the cause." — " For really, Sir 
William, I am not your enemy." — " Do you then 
really think," &;c. 

Considerations. " In short, if we are to per- 
sist in this ruinous and impracticable German war." 
— " In shorty this is which France never can be 
hurt by, and never can be weary of." — " In short, 
there has never any reason yet been given." — " In 
short, either there is such a thing." — " In short, men 
may talk big about the public faith, but every one 
knows what is meant by a resolution of the house." 
— " In short, the two houses are committed in an 
eternal war." 

Junius. "Or, in sAor^, if these arguments should 
be thought insufficient, we may fairly deny the fact." 
— " In short. Sir, to collect a thousand absurdities 
into one mass." — " Or, in short, did they attempt to 
produce any evidence of his insanity ? " 

Considerations. " I will leave the reader to 
picture to himself what must happen long before 
we have gone such a length." — " It is the property 
of error to fly out into endless lengths, without re- 
specting any common point or centre." 

Junius. " Supposes, that the present House of 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 81 

Commons, in going such enormous lengths, have 
been imprudent to themselves." — " Where shall we 
find the man, who, with purer principles, will go the 
lengths, and run the hazards, that he has done ? " — 
" When a man, who stands forth to the public, has 
gone that length, from which there is no practicable 
retreat." 

Considerations. "Providence has heen pleas- 
ed to present to our view the means of solid peace 
and independence : and to have reserved, for the pe- 
culiar glory of his Majesty's reign, the placing our 
island in a state of happiness." 

Junius. " To have supported your assertion,, 
you should have proved, that the present ministry." 

Considerations. " We had Prussian caps to 
make our ladies look fine, and Prussian cross-bones 
to shew their men the more frightful ; and, which 
was more than both, we had Prussian ale for the 
mob to get drunk with." — " The thoughtless mob 
may be instantaneously converted in his favor." 

Junius. " Lord Chatham very properly called 
this the act of a mob, not of a Senate." 

Considerations. " It will by no means follow, 
that every continental connection must therefore be 
right : else we must read our logic backwards, and 
say, Omne minus includit majus,'^ 



82 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

Junius. " He changes the terms of the proposi- 
tion.^^ — " His logic seems to have been studied un- 
der Mr. Dyson. That miserable pamphleteer, di- 
viding the only precedent in point, and taking as 
much of it, as suited his purpose, had reduced his 
argument to something like the shape of a syllo- 
gism." — " If I admitted the premises, I should agree 
in all the consequences drawn from them." — " This 
is the very logic, taught at St. Omer's."— " In this 
article, your first fact is false — I could wish you 
would pay a greater attention to the truth of your 
premises, before you suffer your genius to hurry you 
to a conclusion." — " You assure me, that my logic 
is puerile and tinsel; that it carries not the least 
weight or conviction ; that my premises are false, 
and my conclusions absurd." — " This may be logic 
at Cambridge, or at the treasury." 

Considerations. " If from reasoning we recur 
to f acts. ^' 

Junius. " It depends -upon a combination of 
facts and reasoning.'''' — " By reconciling absurdities, 
and making the same proposition, which is false and 
absurd in argument, true in fact. '^ 

Considerations. *' And the Dutch and Danes 
have given no proof of their wishing success to our 
cause. / do not mean the defence of Hanover, but 
the war, in which we are supporting the king of 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 83 

Prussia." — " I do not mean to say, that these subsi- 
dies did not afterwards grow larger." 

Junius. " I would have the manners of the peo- 
ple purely and strictly republican. / do not mean 
the Hcentious spirit of anarchy and riot. / mean a 
general attachment to the commonweal." — " The 
question to those, who mean fairly to the liberty of 
the people." — " Do you mean to desert that just and 
honorable system." — " They, who object to detach- 
ed parts of Junius' last letter, either do not mean him 
fairly." — " They, who would carry the privileges of 
parliament farther than Junius, either do not mean 
well to the public, or know not what they are do- 
ing." — " It is time for those, who really mean well 
to the cause." — " Without meaning an indecent 
comparison I may venture to foretel." — " I do not 
mean to decline the question of right," 

Considerations. " It is not now the business 
of France to exert its whole force." 

Junius. " Exert their utmost abilities in the dis- 
cussion of it." — " Gave us no promise of that un- 
common exertion of vigor." — " He must now exert 
the whole power of his capacity." 

" Considerations. " Many persons, 1 know, 
will think it strange." — " / know, it is said, we have 
money enough." — " / know, that it has been said, 



84 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

that England paid." — " I know, it has been said, 
that our allies." 

Junius. " My premises, / know, will be denied 
in argument." — " I know it has been alleged in your 
favor." — " A courtier, / know, will be ready to 
maintain the affirmative." 

Considerations. " To contribute he is capable 
of to the public service." — " This was an august al- 
liance, worthy of a king of England to fight at the 
head of." — " Which England can be indangered 
by ; and the only state, which England is now at war 
with.'''' — " Proves the immense height of power, 
which that kingdom may arrive at, and," &;c. — 
" Practising less of its religious tyranny over its Pro- 
testant subjects, than it had been ordinarily used to.'''' 
— " Which in every other case is allowed to be the 
best rule to found a judgment upon.^"* — " Whither 
could they wish to transfer the war, rather than into 
Germany, where they have nothing to lose, or be in 
fear for ; and where could they wish to have us 
meet them, rather than in a country, where we have 
nothing to hope for ? " — " But what is the benefit, 
which this much greater sum is the purchase of? " 
— " A specific renunciation, which in our future 
treaty cannot be thought of'' — "A greater expense 
for the German war, than it had then the least idea 
of — " To carry them to an infinitely greater 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 85 

height, than any other men could have thought of." 
— " Cannot build them a single frigate to annoy our 
coast with.^^ — " Which from the nature of their quar- 
rel they can never be free from.^^ — " And what is 
all this slaughter of German protestgnts to end in / " 
— " To fight in a cause, which all the powers of 
Europe are averse to." — " Finding our enemy a 
field to beat us m." — " France has Switzerland, 
Italy, Germany, and Flanders to recruit out of.^^ — 
" In short, this is a war, which France never can be 
hurt by, and never can be weary of." — " Have no 
other ground to meet us on." 

Junius. " Before you had obliged lord Granby 
to quit a service he was attached to." — " Have noth- 
ing to regret, but that it has never been adhered to" 
— " He was entitled to it by the house he lives in." 
— " An early conviction, that no serious resentment 
was thought of, and that," &;c. — " But was there no 
other person of rank and consequence in the city, 
whom government could confide in, but a notorious 
Jacobite ? " — " When the party, he wishes well to, 
has the fairest prospect of success." — " What a piti- 
ful detail did it end in ! — some old clothes, — a 
Welch poney," &;c. — " If any coarse expressions 
have escaped me, I am ready to agree, that ihey 
are unfit for Junius to make use of." — " To rail at 
him for crimes he is not guilty of" — " In whatever 
8 



86 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

departments their various abilities are best suited io." 
— " When lord Camden supposes a necessity (which 
the king is to judge of) ; " — " No remedy for the 
grievance complained of; for if there v^^ere," Stc. — 
" A whole life of deliberate iniquity is ill atoned /or, 
by doing now and then a laudable action." — " But 
they did more than people in general were aware 
o/"." — " Are the real cause of all the public evils we 
complain o/"." — " And truly, Sir WilUam, the part 
you have undertaken is at least as much as you are 
equal 2^0." — " Presume to intrude yourself, unthought 
of, uncalled /or, upon the patience of the public ?" — 
" Avail yourself of all the unforgiving piety of the 
court you live in, and bless God, that ' you are not 
as other men are.' " — " Should have forbidden you 
to make use of" — " Let us look back to a scene, in 
which a mind like yours will find nothing to repent 
of." — " An acquisition, the importance of which you 
have probably no conception o/"." — " Would then 
have known what they had to trust to, and would 
never," Sec. — " Would never have felt, much less 
would he have submitted to, the dishonest necessi- 
t3%" — " To sacrifice ourselves is a weakness we may 
indulge in, if we think proper." — " The man, I 
speak of, has not a heart," &z;c. — " A multitude of 
political oflfences to atone fo7-.^^ 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 87 

Considerations. " The only chance we have 
however for such an union, and the only means of 
accelerating it, is to leave the French to thennselves ; 
not to conquer Germany, for that is impossible ; but 
to harass it as much as they please, and make them- 
selves as odious as we can desire." — " Whither 
could they wish to transfer the war, rather than into 
Germany, where they have nothing to lose or be in 
fear for ; and where could they wish to have us meet 
them, rather than in a country, where we have noth- 
ing to hope for?" — " The sums given seem not cal- 
culated to purchase a defence, so much as to keep 
off an attack." — " It would have been placed under 
the guard of our front, and not out of the reach 
even of our hands." — " If we could be persuaded to 
use that power more, and talk of it less, we might 
perhaps be acting a wiser part." — " Being obliged to 
pay him money to enable him to fight his own bat- 
tles against enemies, which Britain has no quarrel 
with." — " When we had got it, would we keep it, if 
we could ? Could we keep it if we would ?" — " Al- 
lowing it not impossible to take a town, it would be 
absolutely so to know what to do with it." — " A vi^ar, 
which France never can be hurt by, and never can 
be weary of." — " The channel and our fleet would 
keep the peace ; we should not want to get any 
thing from them ; and they would not be able to get 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 



any thing from us." — " And is it not the usual policy 
of men in such circumstances to secure their ene- 
mies as soon as they have wearied their friends ? " — 
" Artfully laid upon us the burden of bribing one 
half of Germany and fighting the other. — His de- 
mands will rise with his greatness, and the time will 
come when our money or our patience will be ex- 
hausted : sooner or later he will be wanting some- 
thing more of us than we shall be able to pay for its 
immunity. Will then the prey, which he has so 
long watched for, appear the less inviting, for Brit- 
ain's being obliged to give up the protection of it? 
Or will the morsel be the less delicious, for our hav- 
ing spent there so many millions in the defence of 
it ?" — " Is either the payment of fear, to buy off the 
evil of suffering ; or it is the purchase of good, to 
procure the benefit of assistance." — " It forms con- 
tinental connections : that is, it contentedly lavishes 
away its treasures for a something, which it can 
draw no troops from, called by a fine name, to 
which it can put no meaning." — " When all that 
continent is connected with France in an alliance 
against us, and the cause we would espouse ; the 
sending our troops thither in such a case, and upon 
such a pretence, is litde better than the running our 
head against a wall, and saying we must have a 
connection with it." — " To consider where it can 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 



89 



make war to greatest advantage ; where it is it- 
self strongest, and its enemy weakest 5 where it has 
itself least to lose, and its enemy most ; and where 
its victories are like to have the best effect, and 
soonest bring its enemy to peace." — " The only ac- 
quisitions it would be of any advantage to us to gain, 
and the only ones, which it is practicable for us to 
keep." — " Is by much too expensive an affair to be 
chosen upon any account as a French diversion ; 
and by much too serious an affair to be considered 
in any sense as an English one." 

I think no one, conversant with Junius, can read 
the foregoing extracts from the " Considerations," 
without perceiving the very spirit and style of Ju- 
nius : let him compare them with the following. 

Junius. " But, my lord, you may quit the field 
of business though not the field of danger, and 
though you cannot be safe you may cease to be ri- 
diculous." — " Even the best of princes may at last 
discover, that this is a contention, in which every 
thing may be lost but nothing can be gained." — 
"You began with betraying the people; you con- 
clude with betraying the king." — "They have relin- 
quished the revenue, but judiciously taken care to 
preserve the contention." — " The duke, it seems, 
had contracted an obligation he was ashamed to ac- 
knowledge and unable to acquit. You, my lord, 
8* 



90 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

had no scruples. You accepted the succession 
with all its incumbrances, and have paid Mr. Lut- 
trell his legacy, at the hazard of ruining the estate." 
— " You shall be called upon to answer for the ad- 
vice, which has been given, and either discover your 
accomplices, or fall a sacrifice to their security." — 
°' He determined to quit a court, whose proceedings 
and decisions he could neither assent to with honor, 
nor oppose with success." — " Their constituents 
would have a better opinion of their candor, and, I 
promise you, not a worse opinion of their integrity." 
— " The honor of a nobleman is no more consider- 
ed than the reputation of a peasant ; for, with differ- 
ent liveries, they are equally slaves." — " The mo- 
tions of a timid, dishonest heart, which neither has 
virtue enough to acknowledge truth, or courage to 
contradict it." — " The impostor employs force in- 
stead of argument, imposes silence where he cannot 
convince, and propagates his character by the 
sword." — " He became minister by accident ; but 
fieserting the principles and professions which gave 
him a moment's popularity, we see him from every 
lionorable engagement to the public an apostate by. 
design." — " His reputation, like that unhappy coun- 
try to which you refer me for his last military 
achievements [Hanover], has suffered more by his 
iriends than his enemies." — " These are the gloomy 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 91 

companions of a disturbed imagination ; the melan- 
choly madness of poetry without the inspiration." — 
" As you are yourself a singular instance of youth 
without spirit, the man who defends you is a no less 
remarkable example of age without the benefit of 
experience." — " From one extreme you suddenly 
start to another, without leaving between the weak- 
ness and the fury of the passions one moment's 
interval for the firmness of the understanding." — 
" Whose views can only be answered by reconciling 
absurdities, and making the same proposition, which 
is false and absurd in argument, true in fact." — " It 
is not, that you do wrong by design, but that you 
should never do right by mistake." — " Having sold 
the nation to you in gross, they will undoubtedly pro- 
tect you in the detail ; for, while they patronise your 
crimes, they feel for their own." — " The rays of 
royal indignation, collected upon him, served only to 
illuminate, and could not consume." — " To a situa- 
tion so unhappy, that you can neither do wrong 
without ruin, nor right without afiiiction." — " The 
prince, who imitates their conduct, should be warn- 
ed by their example ; and, while he plumes himself 
upon the security of his title to the crown, should 
remember, that, as it was acquired by one revolu- 
tion, it may be lost by another." 



92 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

Considerations. " An army is a many-headed 
monster, that must be fed ; and the defending army 
ought to have as many mouths as the attacking; and 
each will get but all they can from the poor inhabit- 
ants." — " The French have already been in posses- 
sion of this country. Did the sun refuse to shine, or 
the rivers to flow, upon that account?" — "We con- 
fess he lives by miracle, and are wondering every 
year, that he does not fall : and yet this is the prince, 
that we have placed our only dependence on." — 
" Instead of attacking this bull by the horns on his 
German frontier, let us rather gore him in his flank, 
or pierce him to the heart." — " Draw down good 
troops for another army, I had ahuost said, out of 
the moon ; for upon this earth, I have shown, they 
are not to be had." — " Why take so immensely 
wide a circuit, to come at a point which lies straight 
before us ?"— " Do the resentments even of private 
men subside so soon, after the most premeditated 
rancor ? The operations of fear may be instantane- 
ous : but love and friendship are plants of a slower 
growth." — " All the connections, therefore, which 
we can have at present with these, must, I fear, be 
at the muzzles of our musquets." — " For a moment 
let us lament the fate of our island, that having so 
long remained above water, it must now sink, unless 
chained and moored by some connection to the con- 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. '98 

tinent." — " But not to lose sight of this subject in 
this unmeaning smoke-ball of a pompous phrase." — 
" And how would the mighty statesman's ghost stalk 
indignant by the man," &.c. — " Is little better than 
running our head against a wall, and saying we must 
have a connection with it." 

Junius. " Private credit is wealth ; — public 
honor is security. The feather, that adorns the 
royal bird, supports his flight. "Strip him of his 
plumage, and you fix him to the earth." — " Ample 
justice has been done, by abler pens than mine, to 
the separate merits of your life and character. Let 
it be my humble office to collect the scattered 
sweets till their united virtue tortures the sense." — 
" Not daring to attack the main body of Junius' last 
letter, he triumphs in having, as he thinks, surprised 
an outpost, and cutoff a detached argument, a mere 
straggling proposition. But even in this petty war- 
fare he shall find himself defeated." — " If you deny 
him the cup, there will be no keeping him within 
the pale of the ministry." — " My zeal for his service 
is superior to neglect, and, like Mr. Wilkes' patriot- 
ism, thrives by persecution." — " When that noxious 
planet approaches England, he never fails to bring 
plague and pestilence along with him." — " The 
flaming patriot, who so lately scorched us in the 
meridian, sinks temperately to the west, and is 



94 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

hardly felt as he descends." — " The wary Wedder- 
burne, the pompous Suffolk, never threw away the 
scabbard, nor ever went upon a forlorn hope." — "In 
the shipwreck of the state, trifles float, and are 
preserved ; while every thing solid and valuable 
sinks to the bottom, and is lost for ever." — " The 
very sun-shine you live in is a prelude to your 
dissolution. When you are ripe, you shall be 
plucked." 

Considerations. " But shall we suffer the Pro- 
testant interest to be oppressed ? This is a question 
put into the mouths of many good people, and there- 
fore deserves a particular answer." — " But shall 
France be suffered to conquer Hanover ? No one, 
who is in the least acquainted," 8ic. — " But the 
poor people, it may be said, deserve our compas- 
sion. True, they do so ; and for that reason we 
ought to let them alone, and not make their country 
the theatre of a war, which must ruin them." — " But 
the empress Queen refused to defend the Electo- 
rate. True, she alleged her own danger, and there- 
fore she increased that danger." — " Does he then 
supply our army with troops ? " — " But is he not a 
man of great abilities ? Doubtless he is so ; and 
one of the clearest proofs of it is his obliging us to 
pay him six hundred and seventy thousand pounds 
for nothing. In that respect he is certainly the 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 95 

greatest prince ever known to Britain before." — 
" But he is certainly a very great prince. So we 
read in our papers about three hundred times a 
year." — " But the truth is, all the diversion, which 
Britain can make to France in Germany, is by 
sending fewer troops, at double the expense, to act 
against a greater number of the French. Thus it 
has been every year of the war hitherto, and thus it 
will continue." 

Junius. "But after all, Sir, where is the injury? 
You assure me, that my logic is puerile and tinsel." 
— " But, it seems, 1 have outraged the feelings of a 
father's heart. — Am I indeed so injudicious?" — 
" What then, my lord ? Is this the event of all the 
sacrifices you have made to lord Bute's patronage, 
and to your own unfortunate ambition?" — "After 
all. Sir, to what kind of disavowal has the king of 
Spain at last consented?" — "Who attacks the lib- 
erty of the press ? — Lord Mansfield. — Who invades 
the constitutional power of juries ? — Lord Mans- 
field." — " You ask me. What juryman was chal- 
lenged by lord Mansfield ? — ^I tell you, his name is 
Benson." — " But, it seems, ' the liberty of the press 
may be abused, and the abuse of a valuable privi- 
lege is the certain means to lose it.' The first I 
admit." — " But I could venture, for the experi- 
ment's sake, even to give this writer the utmost he 



96 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

asks." — " But I have a charge of a heavier nature 
against Sir William Draper. He tells us," he. — 
" Has this gentleman been called to a court martial 
to answer for his conduct ? No. Has it been cen- 
sured ? No." — " Will your majesty interfere in a 
question, in which you have properly no immediate 
concern ^ It would be a step equally odious and 
unnecessary. Shall the lords be called upon to de- 
termine the rights and privileges of the commons ? — 
They cannot do it without a flagrant breach of the 
constitution." 



CHAPTER VI. 

Argument from the Comparison of the ^^ Reply 
to Burgoyne." 

In the year 1779 there was published m London 
a pamphlet in 46 pages, entitled — " A Reply to 
Lieutenant General Burgoyne's Letter to his Con- 
stituents. — Expende Hanuibalem. Juv." — As an 
inquiry was made in parliament concerning Bur- 
goyne's campaign, and as he endeavored to throw 
the blame of its failure on lord Sackville, whose in- 
structions, as he maintained, he followed, it is evi- 
dent, that Sackville was the person most interested 
in defending the Secretary for the American de- 
partment and in endeavoring to beat down the de- 
fence of general Burgoyne. The pamphlet is also 
written in such a cool and dignified manner, with 
such pretensions to candor, as betrays its author- 
ship. Its correspondence in style with the ' Consid- 
erations ' on the German war is another proof, that it 
came from the pen of Sackville. Believing it can- 
not be made a question, that this was his produc- 
9 



98 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

tion, I shall endeavor to prove, that it bears the very 
features of Junius. 

I shall first present a few words and phrases, such 
as are common in Junius, or peculiar to him. 

Reply. " Difficulties were crowding upon you 
no less formidable, than numerous." — " / confess, I 
am ignorant of the mode of justification." — " / con- 
fess, that were I an elector of Preston, I should 
entertain strong doubts." — " As this is impractica- 
ble.'' " Surely'' " True" "It is true"— 

" Really." 

" Positive and precise as the oracle of Delphos, 
you pronounce upon the plans and principles of min- 
isters ; upon the wrongs of injured merit j upon the 
dreadful situation of public affairs." 

" You sate out with stating, that," &z;c. 

" Your authority cannot have that weight upon 
the present occasion, which upon all other occasions 
it is justly entitled to." 

" Yet, in spite of this opinion, he. you still con- 
tinue," he. 

" You complain very bitterly of the Court eti- 
quette, invented, you allege, upon your occasion, 
which excluded you from the royal presence." — 
" If he wished to have suppressed your information, 
whether he took the means," Stc. — " Your inform,a- 
tion, it is true, would be immediately told in the 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 99 

royal ear." — " He could not imagine, that your 
facts would be weakened." 

" I will prove, that to have granted it to you 
would have been folly and injustice." 

The author of the Reply usually writes in the 
first person singular : in the following sentence he 
falls into the ministerial manner of the plural. " If 
you tell us, that it is the privilege of anger to rail, 
we will agree with you, that it is a privilege, which 
anger too frequently assumes ; but if you mean se- 
riously to bring forward these charges, you must 
support them with other evidence than your own." 
The spirit of the latter part of the sentence proves a 
personal interest on the part of the writer. 

Towards the close of the Reply, a very ingenious 
parallel is instituted between Marcus Attilius Regulus 
and lieutenant general Burgoyne. Tt concludes 
with saying, in reference to Burgoyne's letter, — 
" This letter was received with a difference of opin- 
ion. Some thought it a pathetic representation of 
unnecessary severity ; some considered it as a justi- 
fication of his conduct ; and there were not wanting 
some who pronounced it a libel upon the king's 

GOVERNMENT." 

Reply. " We admire the morality of the senti- 
ment, and only lament, that it should be so little 
observed." — " Whatever may have been the con- 



100 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

duct of Ministers, you stand alike with them before 
the tribunal of the public, and it is not by the accu- 
sation of others, that you will be permitted to justify 
yourself." — " This country has seen commanders 
whom Ministers, in vain, would have labored to dis- 
grace ; whom it was not in the power of calumny 
to defame ; whom it was not within the reach of 
malice to hurt. — Instead of depending for their 
lustre upon Ministers, they reflected glory upon Ad- 
ministration." — " The truly great commander rests 
not upon such uncertain grounds. He lays in a 
stock of reputation, which a legion of pilferers may 
labor in vain to diminish ; and, secure in the opinion 
of his country, he sets at defiance both the insidious 
whisper, and the professed attack." — " The mob 
form their opinion of an orator from the strength of 
his lungs, and the muscle of his arm. Noisy vo- 
ciferation and vehement gesture pass with them 
for the warmth of conviction and the authority of 
truth." — " In order to induce our belief of an im- 
probable circumstance with regard to you, you tell 
us first to believe it of five hundred others ; as if 
incredulity decreased, in proportion as the improb- 
able verges towards the marvellous." — " The same 
mark of distinction may be conferred upon one, 
who, under your circumstances, will not observe 
your conduct J who being equally unfortunate will 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 



101 



not be equally upright." — " It was easier for a 
whole people to be treacherous, than for Regulus. 
to be false. He knew the punishment, that awaited 
him at Carthage : but stern and inflexible, he pre- 
ferred his duty to his safety ; and his countenance, 
which upon his arrival expressed a thousand mixed 
emotions, was serene and setded at his departure." 
— " This charge, therefore, does not appear to have 
any foundation in truth ; and certainly it has none 
in reason.^'' — " While his rank would secure him 
respect, the consideration that he was called to that 
rank from an opinion of his abilities, would give 
hope to his troops, and confidence to his country." 
— " They gave freedom to your tongue in the sen- 
ate, but not liberty to your arm in the field ; and it 
would have been neither honorable in you to have 
drawn your sword, nor in this country to have ac- 
cepted of your services." — " I shall now. Sir, take 
my leave of you with a very sincere wish, that your 
retreat from the public service may appease the 
malice of your enemies, and that your retirement 
may be undisturbed by reproach." 

I flatter myself, that no one can read these ex- 
tracts from the Reply to Burgoyne, without recog- 
nising the author of Junius and the author of Con- 
siderations on the German War. It may indeed be 
said, that the Reply was written six years after the 
9* 



102 JUNIUS UNMASKE0» 

letters of Junius, and that Sackville, the author of it, 
might have imitated the manner of Junius. But I 
think no one will confide in such a suggestion, who 
considers, that Sackville, when the letters of Junius 
were finished, was fifty-six years of age, and that 
long before that period his style of writing, whatever 
it was, must in its great characteristics have been 
fixed and unalterable. In 1779, when he had reach- 
ed his first grand climacteric, he was not likely to be 
employed in the study of Junius as a model of com- 
position. If not an imitator, he is the original. 

We have thus seen a strong resemblance, inexpli- 
cable except from the identity of the authors, be- 
tween the style of Junius and that of Sackville in his 
writings both before and after Junius. Our persua- 
sion of this identity will, I think, be confirmed, by 
the perusal of the following extracts from the 
Speeches and Letters of lord Sackville, which are 
stamped with the style and spirit of Junius. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Argument from the Comparison of the Speeches and 
Letters of Sackville. 

Sackville. " I am extremely obliged to you for 
your letter ; though wrote to me in English, it must 
have been," &;c. Letter, 1745. "I should have 
wrote to you sooner," he. Letter, 1748. 

Junius. " The letters of your masterly corre- 
spondent Lucius have drove his lordship." Cleo- 
phas, September, 1768. 

Sackville. 1770. ^' Mark, how he is every 
day and every hour pointed out in print, &;c. No 
epithet is too bad for him." 

Junius to Garrick, 1771. " Now mark rae, vag- 
abond. Keep to your pantomimes, or, be assured, 
you shall hear of it." 

Sackville. " Remote, as it is, from those, I am 
used to live with, and different as the country and 
climate are from those I might expect to be in." — 
" Such is the climate, that we are sending our troops 
to." — " If he did not like the quarters the regiment 
was ordered to." — "It is a fault I am not often 



104 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

guilty of." — " Inconveniences, which an alteration of 
any standing law may be attended with.^^ — " What a 
nonplus might a colonel be put to, when his regi- 
ment was just going to be reviewed." — " Such de- 
mands, I believe, very few colonels would be able to 
comply with." — " Superior to those we may now 
meet them with." 

Junius. "As much as you are equal to." — 
" Battles, which he might have been engaged in, 
and the dangers," he. — " Would have known what 
they had to trust to, and would never," he. 

Sackville. January, 1770. " The freedom of 
election is the sacred palladium of English liberty." 

Junius. Dedication, 1 772. " The liberty of the 
press is the palladium," he. 

Sackville. 1748. "We have had no letters 
from Holland for some days, so we do not know," 
he. — " A long time before 1 can have the pleasure 
of being taken measure of by him ; so, if you please, 
do not wait for me." 

Junius. " I have no doubt of what you say 
about David Garrick ; so drop the note." — " And so 
direct to Mr. John Fretly." 

Sackville. " Supported the ministry in the 
address to the king ; so that Mr. Hume Campbell," 
he. — " Such as a rich wife, large legacy, or the 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 1D5 

like ; so that even this bill passed into law," &;c. — 
The same phrase is often used by Sackville. 

Junius. " Until they should be demanded by 
the civil power ; so that, while the officers," Sic. — 
" He warned them to hold up and inhance the 
price ; so that the plan of reducing," &;c. 

Sackville. 1770. " Adviseable to 5cr6ere him 
behind the curtain of a majority." 

Junius. " Which you endeavor to screen by 

suddenly dropping," Sic. " Who screened lord 

Mansfield?" 

Sackville. 1781. " Although insinuations had 
been thrown out with respect to the past," &;c. 

Junius. " Deceived by the appearances thrown 

out by your grace." " Fallacious insinuations 

thrown out by men," he. 

Sackville. 1779. " He despised that honor- 
able member, but would level himself with his 
wretched character and malice." — " Perish in the 
tumult with honester men." 

Junius. "That Swinney is a wretched but a 
dangerous fool." — " The wretched conduct of the 
ministry."—" This Scsevola is the wretchedest of all 
fools, and dirty knave." 

Sackville. " Suppose the allegation true, yet 
still it can be here no reasonable objection." — " A 



106 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

body of men interested to support them ; yet still 
the force of truth finally surmounts the obstacle." 

Junius. In letter of Veteran. — " Yet still, some 
of them, though in your wise opinion not qualified to 
command, are entitled to respect." — " Still however 
your opinions," &lc. 

Sackville. January, 1770. "And though his 
Majesty, in the generous, unsuspecting frankness of 
his nature, may not perceive to what an unhappy 
catastrophe the perfidy of his ministers may lead, 
yet surely it is the duty of his parliament to guard 
him against the insidious artifices of those, who hav- 
ing rendered themselves odious by their conduct, 
have nothing more to do, but to render themselves 
secure by their cunning." 

Junius. August, 1770. "As for you, my lord, 
who perhaps are no more than the blind, unhappy 
instrument of lord Bute and her royal highness, the 
Princess of Wales, be assured, that you shall be 
called upon to answer for the advice, which has 
been given, and eitlier discover your accomplices or 
fall a sacrifice to their security." 

" Their constituents would have a better opinion 
of their candor, and, I promise you, not a worse 
opinion of their integrity." 



CHAPTER VIII. 



Concluding Remarks. 



If, as I trust has been proved, Sackville be the 
author of the letters of Junius, he deserves to be re- 
membered, not as a great benefactor of the human 
race, but as a bold, keen, malignant accuser of his 
brethren, who has taught multitudes to shoot from a 
dark corner the arrows of destruction and slander. 
He has probably had more admirers and imitators, 
than any political writer whatever. Warm partizans 
aim to wield the bow of Junius ; and we have seen 
truth and charity falling in the streets. If we should 
for a moment study the grand features of Christian 
goodness, — the meekness, the humility, the forbear- 
ance, the ardent benevolence, which beam forth in 
the countenance of the disciple of Jesus, — and then 
contemplate the dark, malignant visage of Junius, 
the stern pride, the irrepressible disdain, the deep 
hostility, the unsated revenge, the barbarous ferocity, 
by which he is marked, — we shall see somewhat of 
the difference between an angel of light and a fallen 
spirit of evil. 



108 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

The general admiration of Junius by our country- 
men is greatly to be deplored, inasmuch as it tends 
to foster the malignant passions of the human heart, 
and to introduce into the political disputes of brethren 
all the ferocity, which in Junius is to be traced to 
the indignation of a degraded soldier and the deter- 
mined ambition, which builds its structure on the 
ruins, it has created. 

Sackville's whole life, after the dishonor of his 
court martial, was a life of imposture. He perpetu- 
ally wore a mask. He shrouded himself in dark- 
ness. His real aims were never avowed ; and the 
measures, adopted for obtaining those ends, were 
secret and mysterious. When there was wanting 
the consciousness of sincerity and of love to truth, 
his support even of correct principles loses its value. 
In considering some of the sentiments of Junius as 
coming from the haughty, imperious minister of 
George in, I cannot avoid thinking of commenda- 
tions of chastity from the lips of a libertine. I ask 
for republican principles only from a real republi- 
can, and not from a devoted servant of royalty. I 
will accept however from Lord Sackville his de- 
scription of the characters and manners of the illus- 
trious nobles of Great Britain. He knew them 
well ; and speaking from intimate acquaintance he 
carries conviction to the mind. 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 109 

Happy will it be for Americans, who have the 
privilege of electing their own rulers, if they commit 
power only to the hands of the virtuous ; if they 
never by their suffrages elevate to high dignity and 
wide influence men, whose hands are red with 
crime, and whose examples will shed a pestilence 
through the land. Without private, how can we 
expect public virtue .-' The unpluraed eagle, though 
we place him among the stars, will yet sink to the 
ground. 

Of the irritable temper and proud, indignant feel- 
ings of lord Sackville, perfectly according with the 
character of Junius, there is very ample evidence. 

In 1770 lord Sackville made a motion in the 
House of Commons, on which Governor John- 
stone, in reply, remarked, " that he wondered that 
noble lord should interest himself so deeply in the 
honor of his country, when he had hitherto been so 
regardless of his own." In consequence Sackville 
challenged and fought him with pistols. 

After the capture of Burgoyne a motion was made 
in parliament to inquire into the convention of Sara- 
toga. In the debate Mr. Luttrell alluded to the 
censure of the court martial on lord Sackville, — ■ 
who replied — " that he never was personal in the 
house to any one ; never, by any conduct of his, 
merited such an attack ; he despised that honorable 
10 



110 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

member, but would level himself with his wretched 
character and malice ; old as he was, he would meet 
that fighting gentleman and be revenged." The 
house was thrown into confusion. It was vi^ith great 
difficulty, that lord George was induced to acknowl- 
edge his irregularity and to make an apology. 

Mr. Burke said in a speech May 6, 1779, con- 
cerning lord North, — " He is sometimes more angry, 
than his noble friend (lord George Sackville,) and 
when he pleases, he can be almost as witty." 

In a debate at the opening of parliament in 1780, 
after a speech by Mr. Fox, lord Sackville said— 
" as the honorable gentleman, in the course of his 
speech, had thought proper to throw out allusions, 
which he could not but see were directed at him, 
the house might possibly expect, that he should 
make some reply ; he rose therefore, to say, once for 
all, that whenever gentlemen chose to descend to the 
meanness of dealing in personal invectives, and to 
single him out as their object, he was prepared to 
treat the invectives and the author of them with the 
contempt they deserved." 

Mr. Cumberland says — " The well known cir- 
cumstance, that occurred upon his elevation to the 
peerage, made a deep and painful impression on his 
feeling mind ; and if his seeming patience under 
the infliction of it should appear to merit, in a moral 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. Ill 

sense, the name of virtue, I must candidly acknowl- 
edge it as a virtue, that he had no title to be credit- 
ed for, inasmuch as it was entirely owing to the in- 
fluence of some, who overruled his propensities, that 
he did not betake himself to the same abrupt, un- 
warrantable mode of dismissing this insult, as he 
had resorted to in a former instance." Cumberland 
then states, that Sackville had prepared an invitation, 
and was about to send it by Sir Edward Sackville, 
when the remonstrances of lord Amherst and other 
friends put him by from his resolve. He also re- 
marks — " Many men, in other respects wise and 
just and temperate, not having the resolution to be 
right in their own consciences, have set aside both 
reason and religion, and in compliance with the 
evil practice of the world about them, performed 
their bloody sacrifices, and immolated human victims 
to the idol of false honor." 

It is a melancholy consideration, that at the age 
of sixty-six he should thus have resolved on a duel 
with the marquis of Carmarthen. We see how em- 
bittered were those honors, for the attainment of 
which he had toiled so long and so incessantly, and 
the attainment of which he survived only three 
short years. Had the same mental effort and the 
same unwearied industry, instead of being wasted in 
political controversy, or prostituted to the indulgence 



112 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

of personal animosities, or degraded by subserviency 
to ambitious views, been employed in the noble pur- 
suits of virtue and religion ; Sackville would have 
received from the king of heaven an unwithering 
crown of righteousness. He gained the title of 
Viscount and a seat in the House of Peers j but he 
did not gain tranquillity and repose. He will have, 
as I believe, the mingled credit and infamy of being 
the author of the letters of Junius ; and the undivid- 
ed reproach of employing the American savages as 
instruments of terror and of carnage in conducting 
the American war. While the war-whoop and the 
scalping-knife are remembered, the " perishable in- 
famy " of his name shall be kept alive. 

To my mind there is something very impressive 
and monitory in the death of Sackville. I cannot 
apply to him the words of the poet of the 
grave : — 

" Sure the last end 
Of the good man is peace. How calm his exit I 
Night dews fall not more gently to the ground,. 
Nor weary, worn-out winds expire more soft. 
Behold him ! in the evening-tide of life, 
A life well spent, whose early care it was. 
His riper years should not upbraid his green : 
By unperceived degrees he wears away ; 
Yet, like the sun, seems larger at his setting I" 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 113 

Alaiost the whole life of Sackville was a perpetual 
combat, a struggle for office and for the honors de- 
rived from royal friendship. After possessing those 
honors for two or three short years he found him- 
self sinking into the grave. It is an interesting in- 
quiry, what was the foundation of his hopes in regard 
to afuture world. He believed the christian reli- 
gion. Among its requisitions he knew was the de- 
mand of forgiveness of injuries and reconciliation to 
an injured brother. This world was fading away 
from his sight, and the future was rising upon his 
vision. After a great struggle he brought his mind 
to the point of forgiving one, who had deeply 
wounded his pride, and whom a few years before 
he had resolved to fight. Whether this was real 
christian charity and noble benevolence, I will not un- 
dertake to say. This interview with lord Mansfield, 
whom he had injured, has been already described. 
A short time before he expired, he said to Mr. 
Cumberland, his secretary, — pressing his hand — 
" You see me now in those moments, when no dis- 
guise will serve, and when the spirit of a man must 
be proved. I have a mind perfectly resigned, and 
at peace within itself. I have done with this world, 
and what I have done in it I have done for the best ; 
I hope and trust, 1 am prepared for the next. Tell 
not me of all, that passes in health and pride of heart ; 
10* 



114 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

these are the moments, in which a man must be 
searched ; and remember, that I die, as you see 
me, with a tranquil conscience and content." 

Mr. Cumberland also says—" I never heard, that 
my friend, lord George Germain, was amongst the 
suspected authors of Junius, till by way of jest he 
told me so not many days before his death : I did 
not want him to disavow it, for there could be no 
occasion to disprove an absolute impossibility. The 
man, who wrote it, had a savage heart, for some of 
his attacks are execrable : he was a hypocrite, for he 
disavows private motives, and makes pretensions to 
a patriotic spirit." 

If Cumberland is right in his estimate of Junius, 
and if Sackville was Junius ; then, what he had done 
in the world, he had not " done for the best." 
Were his "hypocrisy and execrable attacks" for the 
!)est ? Was the duel with Johnstone for the best ? 
And was the later projected duel for the best ? It 
ill becomes a man to utter the language of Sackville, 
unless he approaches the disinterested benevolence, 
strong faith, and ardent devotion of St. Paul. I 
deem it no breach of charity to assert, that, if in the 
review of his past life Sackville's conscience was 
tranquil ; yet there was no reason for the tranquilli- 
ty. To a great offender I would not deny the pos- 
sibility of dying in peace and even in triumph, pro- 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 115 

vided, that with a penitent spirit and the love of 
holiness he, even in his last hours, confides in the 
mercy of the Savior, that he may be " justified by 
faith in Christ," and find " redemption through his 
blood." But he must come v^^ith the temper of the 
publican, saying, " God, be merciful to me, a sin- 
ner ! " and not in the boastful confidence of a proud 
pharisee. I recollect, that Rousseau, steeped in 
crime, declared, that he would go before the throne 
of God and demand heaven as the reward of his 
virtue. 

There is truth in the following remarks of Adam 
Smith in the first edition of his Theory of Moral 
Sentiments, though afterwards, as he approached the 
faith of Rousseau or imbibed the miserable skepti' 
cism of Hume, he expunged them, as if he too 
intended to demand heaven as the reward of his 
moral excellence, instead of imploring eternal life as 
the gift of mercy through Jesus Christ, " the propi- 
tiation for the sins of the world." 

" If we consult our natural sentiments, we are apt 
to fear, lest before the holiness of God vice should 
appear more worthy of punishment, than the weak- 
ness and imperfection of human nature can ever 
seem to be of reward. Man, when about to appear 
before a being of infinite perfection, can feel but 
litde confidence in his own merit, or in the imper- 



116 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

feet propriety of his own conduct. In the presence 
of his fellow creatures he may often justly elevate 
himself, and may often have reason to think highly 
of his own character and conduct, compared to the 
still greater imperfection of theirs. But the case is 
quite different, when about to appear before his infi- 
nite Creator. To such a being he can scarcely 
imagine, that his littleness and weakness should 
ever seem to be the proper object either of esteem 
or reward. But he can easily conceive, how the 
numberless violations of duty, of which he has been 
guilty, should render him the object of aversion and 
punishment. Neither can he see any reason, why 
the divine indignation should not be let loose, with- 
out any restraint, upon so vile an insect, as, he is 
sensible, that he himself must appear to be. If he 
would still hope for happiness, he is conscious, that 
he cannot demand it from the justice, but that he 
must entreat it from the mercy of God. Repent- 
ance, sorrow, humiliation, contrition at the thought 
of his past conduct are, upon this account, the senti- 
ments, which become him, and seem to be the only 
means, which he has left for appeasing that wrath, 
which, he knows, he has justly provoked. He even 
distrusts the efficacy of all these, and naturally fears, 
lest the wisdom of God should not, like the weak- 
ness of man, be prevailed upon to spare the crime 



JUNIUS UNMASKED. 117 

by the most importunate lamentations of the crim- 
inal. Some other intercession, some other sacrifice, 
some other atonement, he imagines, must be made 
for him, beyond what he himself is capable of mak- 
ing, before the purity of the divine justice can be 
reconciled to his manifest offences." 

These are indeed the natural sentiments of man- 
kind, as is proved by the history of the v^^orld. For 
the removal of these fears and anxieties the Gospel 
discloses an expiation, atonement, sacrifice, made by 
Jesus Christ in his death upon the cross. But here 
another error is to be guarded against, as fatal as 
that of rejecting the method of redemption by the 
Savior's blood j and that is, the hope of being saved 
by that expiation and sacrifice, in some mysterious 
manner, by a kind of extreme unction, by a late 
participation of the Lord's supper, by the efficacy of 
some religious rite, without feeling towards Jesus 
Christ the real Sentiments of admiration, gratitude, 
love, and faith, which the Gospel exacts ; without 
taking him as a Teacher and Master, whose moral 
precepts are to be obeyed, as well as a Sacrifice for 
the sins, that are past, and a Refuge in that solemn 
hour, when human pride has reason to tremble. If 
the approach of death tries the spirit and courage of 
a man ; yet in the solemn moments, which precede 
dissolution, no tranquillity is to be desired, unless it 



118 JUNIUS UNMASKED. 

be a tranquillity, which will abide after death. 
There is a sweet calmness at the close of a sum- 
mer's day, when all nature smiles upon the beholder 
and gives him the promise of a bright and glorious 
morning : — there is also a portentous calmness, 
which precedes the shock of the earthquake, and is 
followed by tumult and desolation. 



APPENDIX. 



I. The " History of the Reign of George III^ 
written by the Author of Junius. 

There was published at London in 1770 a work, 
entitled, " The History of the Reign of George III. 
lo the Conclusion of the Session of Parliament end- 
ing in May, 1770, to which is prefixed a Review of 
the late War," a considerable work of more than 
400 pages, ' printed for the Author, and sold by T. 
Evans.' This book, being one of the books in my 
library, I had the curiosity to examine, in order to 
see, if it was not free from the peculiarities of style, 
which I supposed I had discovered in Junius ; for I 
had been accustomed to regard it as a work of 
Burke. Being written or at least published at the 
very time, when the letters of Junius were coming 
out, and discussing the same subjects, treated of in 
those letters, if the work, as I expected, should not 
exhibit the characteristics, which seemed to be com- 
mon to the " Considerations" on the German War 
and to the Letters of Junius ; then it would strength- 
en my conclusion, that the author of the Considera- 



120 APPENDIX. 

tions and of the Letters was the same. But to my 
surprise I found in the History the same peculiari- 
ties. Here then my theory was in danger of being 
nipped in the bud. My difficulties however were 
soon removed by discovering, that the History was 
not written, as I had erroneously believed, by 
Burke. It is not contained in his works ; it is not 
mentioned in his life ; I know not, that it was ever 
ascribed to him ; and there is no reason to regard it 
as his production. Indeed Burke, in one of his 
Speeches, speaks of this work as an " everlasting 
monument of the folly, incapacity, and pernicious 
politics of our late and present ministers." The 
suggestion instantly occurred to me, that it was a 
production of lord George Sackville, the author of 
Junius. Of this fact my conviction has been strength- 
ened by careful examination. The grounds of ray 
persuasion I will now exhibit. 

I have already stated the frequent use of the word 
formidable in Junius and in the Considerations. It 
is also habitually employed by the author of the 
History. — I will present a few instances. " Look- 
ing on France as the most constant and most formi- 
dable enemy of this kingdom." — " Rendered \x\vi\- 
seM formidable to Walpole and his venal depend- 
ents." — " Overawed by a confederacy the most 
formidable, that the world had ever seen." — " He 



APPENDIX 121 

became more and more formidable every day." 
— " An array, that was in the morning so great and 
formidable. ''^ — " In order to fight an army still more 
formidable^ — " Made the enemy soon feel, that 
they were still more formidable." — " The French 
power, which was more formidable than any Na- 
bob." — " Reason to apprehend, that each of these 
formidable powers would become still more formi- 
dable by an accession of French territory." 

When it is considered, that the above instances 
occur in about 20 pages, no one will question the 
fondness of the writer for the word. It is true, that 
in Dr. Johnson's False Alarm, and in his Thoughts 
concerning the Falkland Islands, written in 1770 
and 1771, and containing 80 pages, the v^oxdi formi- 
dable occurs three or four times ; but I am not 
aware, that he often uses the word in his writings. 
Besides, this circumstance is to be considered in 
combination with other circumstances, and not as a 
solitary argument. 

The phrase, ' Be it so,' has been exhibited both 
in the Considerations and in Junius. It is also 
found in the History : — " But he must, forsooth, be 
considered as the great protector of the reformed 
religion. Be it so ; while his writings testify how 
little he values any religion." — Now this is a re- 
markable phrase. I doubt whether it can be found 
11 



122 APPENDIX. 

in all the writings of Dr. Johnson. I have noticed 
it, however, once or twice in the writings of Burke. 
The phrase, in effect, is by no means common in 
the writers of the period referred to. It occurs 
often in Junius ; as, " They, in effect, gave up that 
constitutional check." — " In effect he has contrived 
to make it the interest of the proprietor." — " When 
you invade the province of the jury, in matter of 
libel, you, in effect, attack the liberty of the 
press." — " For, in effect, both objects have been 
equally sacrificed." — " That greater abilities would 
not, in effect, be an impediment to a design." — 
" The form of the constitution leaves rather more 
than enough to the popular branch ; while, in effect, 
the manners of the people," &;c. — " Shortening the 
duration of parliaments (which, in effect, is keeping 
the representative under the rod of the constitu- 
ent.)" — The letter, in which the two first instances 
are found, was written at the end of May, 1770, at 
the very time, when the writer of the History was 
engaged in his work, which was reviewed in Sep- 
tember of that year. In the History the same 
phrase presents itself : — " The resolution does, in 
effect, affirm, that all men without exception," &£c. — 
" And, in effect, they retreated as far as Lands- 
perg." 



APPENDIX. 123 

The phrase, Yet still, is an uncommon one. I 
suspect it is seldom used, except by writers educat- 
ed in Ireland. It is about as good, as ' Yet yet,'' or 
' JVotivithsta7iding notwithstanding.'' It is not in- 
deed found in the Letters under the signature of 
Junius ; but the same writer assumed the name of 
Veteran, as Woodfall has shown. In Veteran's let- 
ter to lord Barrington of January 28, 1772, is the 
following sentence — " Yet still some of them, though 
in your wise opinion not qualified to command, are 
entitled to respect." 

The same phrase is often Ibund in the History : 
— " Yet still it was necessary, that he should act." 

■— JLtt itllL ins COiitia IvjiIJalijcu. Oiiipi^. =-" i Ck 

still the ministry weathered the storm." — " Yet still, 
finding a resource in his own steadiness and cour- 
age, he resolved not to fall in an inglorious man- 
ner." — " Yet still no flag of truce was hung out 
upon the walls." — " Yet still, though that was the 
object of his last movement, he could not prevent," 
&c. — " Yet still the majority of the lower house 
was obsequious." — " Yet still, the comparison will 
not hold." 

In a speech of lord Sackville February, 1772, in 
the House of Commons I find the following : — 
" Suppose the allegation true, yet still it can be 



124 APPENDIX. 

here no reasonable objection." — Also, "ye^ still the 
force of truth finally surmounts every obstacle." 

I have met with this phrase once in Francis' De- 
mosthenes, — a work, which I doubt not was much 
studied by lord Sackville j Dr. Francis lived in Ire- 
land till, I believe, 1750. 

I proceed to another remarkable phrase, found 
both in Junius and in the History. 

Junius. May 1769. " There is something in 
both, which distinguishes you, not only from aU 
other ministers, but all other men. It is not, that 
you do wrong by design, but that you should never 
do right by mistake. It is not, that your indolence 
and your activity have been equally misapplied, but 
that," he. — Also October 1769 ; — " If these gen- 
tlemen were better soldiers, I am sure they would 
be better subjects. It is not, that there is any in- 
ternal vice or defect in the profession itself, but that 
it is the spirit," Sic. 

History. " It is not, that we think it unexcep- 
tionable in this respect : on the contrary." — " It is 
not, that the commons did not claim the sole right." 
— " It is not, that the writer is conscious of any 
blameable partiality." — " It is not, that there was 
not a numerous division against them on this occa- 
sion. It was indeed so considerable," he. — " It is 
not. that the ministerial advocates had not on this 



APPENDIX. 



125 



occasion many arguments, or rather sophisms to ad- 
vance in support of this decision." — " It is not, that 
their numbers were not sufficiently great, and their 
inclinations good." — " It is not, that the people are 
averse to pay off the debts of the crown. Show, 
that they were fairly contracted, and they will not 
murmur." 

The History was published in the summer of 
1770, and the letters of Junius, above quoted, were 
written in 1769. 

I do not recollect, that I ever met with the phrase 
^ It is not, that^ in any book whatever, except in 
Junius and in the History of the reign of George 
III. ; and also twice in a work of Burke, written in 
1791. Burke may have adopted it from Junius. 
These instances are as follows : — " It is not, that I 
consider," &;c. — " It is not, that as this strange se- 
ries, &;c. — I have not indulged," &c. 

Junius. " With what color of truth can he pre- 
tend." — " Neither can it be said, with any color of 
truth, to be," he. — " For the rest, there is no color 
of palliation or excuse." — " Every color, every 
character became you." — " When his character and 
conduct are frequently held forth in odious or con- 
temptible colors." — " Not to furnish any color or 
pretence for violating or evading." — " Defy him to 
fix any colorable charge of inconsistency upon me." 
11* 



126 APPENDIX. 

In all these instances the letters were written after 
the publication of the History. 

History. " Under color of a judicial proceed- 
ing." — "With what coZor of justice can you take the 
affair under your own cognizance?" — " Under coZor 
of censuring certain obnoxious parts." — " The fol- 
lowing arguments were the colorable pretexts for 
this vote." 

Junius. " In spite of this evidence, — in defiance 
of the representations." — "Jn spite of all your 
grace's ingenuity." 

HisTOKY. " Yet, in spite of all these untoward 
circumstances." — " In spite of all the obstacles." — 
" Chatham, it is true, exerted himself, in spite of 
age and infirmity, with all the fire of youth." — Thus 
frequently. 

Junius. " Beyond which they would scruple to 
proceed." — " You affected to have scruples" — " I 
will not scruple to say, that the very being of that 
law." — " I do not scruple to affirm, with the most 
solemn appeal." — " As to the game laws, he never 
scrupled to declare his opinion." 

History. " Many made no scruple of retiring to 
dinner, when the most material evidences were ex- 
amined." 

Junius. " In the name of decency and common 
sense, what are your grace's merits?" This was 
written after the History. 



APPENDIX. 127 

History. " If this be not the case, why, in 
the name of wonder, were the three estates consti- 
tuted?" 

Junius has been already quoted, as using the 
phrase go a length, Sic. 

History. " The offence is carried to the utmost 
length" — " They proceeded to an unjustifiable length 
in attacking," &;c. 

Junius. " To pronounce fairly upon their con- 
duct, it was necessary." — (May 28, 1770.) — " We 
may safely jpronounce, -that a conjuncture," he. — 
1771. 

History. " To sit in judgment on all the repre- 
sentatives of the people, and to pronounce upon the 
choice." 

Junius. " At a most unseasonable ywncjtMre." 

History. " If they went astray at that junc- 
ture." — " On whose concord and unanimity the 
safety of the nation at this juncture depends." — 
" We ought to interfere at this juncture." 

Junius. " Which you endeavor to screen by sud- 
denly dropping your prosecution." — " Who screened 
lord Mansfield?" 

History. " In screening the earl of Orford from 
public justice." — "It was made indeed not to screen 
criminals." — " A treasurer screens him by issuing 
illegal warrants." 



138 APPENDIX. 

Junius. Having sold the nation to you in gross, 
they will undoubtedly protect you in the detail.''^ 

History. " Which should never have been 
touched but in the gross ; because the purchase of 
it thus in the detail warns the public creditors," he. 

Junius. March, 1770. "When his Majesty 
had done reading his speech the lord mayor, he. 
had the honor of kissing his Majesty's hand : after 
which, as they were withdrawing, his Majesty in- 
stantly turned round to his courtiers, and burst out a 
laughing. — JYero fiddled, while Rome was burning. 
John Home." 

History. "After the citizens had kissed his 
hand, and were retiring, he instantly turned round to 
his courtiers, and burst out a laughing : a circum- 
stance, which made the people recollect, that JVero 
fiddled, when he had set Rome on fire." 

Junius. " I know you both — and the people of 
England shall know you as well as / do." — " That 
great lawyer, that honest man, saw your whole con- 
duct in the light, that / do." — " Done their duty to 
the public with the same zeal and perseverance, 
that 1 did, I vi^ill not assert, that government would 
have recovered its dignity." — " You feel, as you 
ought to do, for the reputation of your friend." 

History. " Some do, and are not exempted." 
— " Ventured no farther, than the members fre- 



APPENDIX. 129 

quently do in parliament." — "A person of sense 
will pin his faith upon the sleeve of no man : yet 
this is what the supporters of the commission tZo." 

Junius. " They would have it understood, that 
they did their duty completely in confining a Ser- 
jeant and four private soldiers, until they should be 
demanded by the civil power ; so that, while the of- 
ficers, who ordered or permitted the thing to be 
done," &;c. — " Has warned them to hold up and 
enhance the price ; — so that the plan of reducing," 
&c. 

History. " They had used to sell them adul- 
terated rum, and to decoy their children away into 
slavery. So that, when they built a fort," &sc. — 
" So that, the ministry, who were not free from the 
general contagion of fear," Sec. — " In consequence 
of this declaration the courts of London and Berlin 
came to an eclaircissement, and matters were soon 
explained j so that a treaty, which had the peace of 
Germany for its sole object, was framed." — " Re- 
solved with great prudence to return without mak- 
ing any attempt ; so that this great and expensive 
armament," Uc. — " Left his retreat unmolested ; so 
that, to all true judges of merit, he appeared as 
great in his defeat as in the most brilliant of his vic- 
tories." — " But while he pursued the fugitives, fresh 



130 APPENDIX. 

troops pressed upon his rear ; so that he was con- 
tinually harassed." 

Lord Sackville, in a speech in the House of 
Commons ; — " Let it be which of them you will, 
the same cause, that made him enlist, will make 
him continue in the army as long as he can, unless 
he meets with some extraordinary good fortune, 
such as a rich wife, large legacy, or the like ; so 
that even this bill, passed into law, as it would pro- 
duce no alteration in the nature of mankind, recruit- 
ing would remain as difficult and expensive, as it 
is now." 

Lord Sackville, it seems, early employed the 
word so in a peculiar ivayj Thus in his letter to 
major Younge, January, 1748 — " There are so ma- 
ny general officers want to employ the boot-maker 
in Pall Mall, that I fear it will be a long time, before 
I can have the pleasure of being taken measure of 
by him ; so, if you please, do not wait for me," &c. 
— " We have had no letters from Holland for some 
days, so we do not know, whether the French have 
attempted any thing." 

Junius. "You seem to have dropped the affair ; 
so let it rest." 

Even in 1745 Sackville wrote — " The opposition 
began to look big, but Mr. Pitt, Mr. Littleton, the 
Grenvilles, and several others, instead of joining in 



APPENDIX. 131 

it, as it was imagined they intended, supported the 
ministry in the address to the king ; so that Mr. 
Hume Campbell, Sir Watkin Williams, &.c. were 
the only persons, that gave any obstruction to what 
was proposed." 

It is doubtful whether a sentence thus construct- 
ed, in the use of so that, can be found in all the 
writings of Johnson. 

Junius. " Our dearest interests are at stake." 

History. " If their property were at stake, they 
would prefer to the judicature of the commons a 
jury of porters, chairmen, or even pickpockets." — 
" When their fundamental liberties were at staJce, 
they would hear of no equivalent." — " The despe- 
rate bravery of men, who knew their lives to be at 
stake." 

Junius. 1769. " The people are seldom wrong 
■ in their opinions ; in their sentiments they are never 
mistaken." 

History. " Their [the populace] intention is 
always good, and 1 believe it will be hard to find an 
instance in history, where they exercised their au- 
thority but in opposition to injustice and oppres- 
sion." 

Junius. " Instead of striking one decisive blow." 

History. " The war with Spain made it neces- 
sary to strike some blow, which might check her 



132 APPENDIX. 

pride and presumption." — " The ministry would not 
delay so mortal a blow for a moment." — " They re- 
ceived another blow." 

Junius. " Outraged and oppressed as we are, 
this nation will not bear," &£c. — " Recovered from 
the errors of his youth, &;c. behold him." — "Touch- 
ed with your generosity, I freely forgive the excess- 
es, into which it has led you." — " Unacquainted 
with the vain impertinence of forms, he would deliv- 
er his sentiments with dignity and firmness." — " An- 
imated by the favor of the people, Sic, his views 
and sentiments changed with his situation." — "Vers- 
ed, as your Majesty undoubtedly is, in the English 
history, it cannot easily escape you." — " Accustom- 
ed to the language of courtiers, you measure their 
affections," &£c. — " Grateful, as I am, to the Good 
Being, Sic, I hold myself." — " Dictated by the 
same spirit, they deserve the same attention." — 
" Struck by the principal figure, we do not suffi- 
ciently mark in what manner the canvass is filled 
up," he. 

History. " Satisfied with having rendered, &;c., 
he left count Dohna with a small army." — " Filled 
with these generous sentiments, he sought every op- 
portunity of engaging the enemies." — " Sunk thus 
into want and impotence, he commenced various 
negotiations." — " Besieged rather than engaged j 



APPENDIX. 133 

attacked without interruption, and without decision ; 
capable neither to advance nor retreat, they saw noth- 
ing before them but the melancholy prospect of crum- 
bling away by degrees, and perishing without re- 
venge, without honor in those dreadful forests." — 
" Baffled in all his military schemes, Sujah Doula 
formed a resolution worthy of the spirit," &;c. — 
" Ignorant, that the riot act had been read, the mul- 
titude increased." — " Unsupported by any personal 
connections, he triumphed over the whole power of 
the court." — " Hurried on by their zeal, they did 
not see, that justice always- attends the victor and is 
measured by his sword : the event being the sole 
criterion, that determines on which side loyalty or 
rebellion lie. Influenced by passion more than by 
prudence, they did not perceive," &c. — " Deeply 
affected by the tragedy of the preceding night, the 
principal inhabitants held a town meeting." — 
" Overawed by the people, whose idol he was, — 
they had not courage," he. — " Roused with indig- 
nation at such unworthy treatment, the injured 
Wilkes immediately renounced, and exposed the 
duplicity and hollowness of his heart to the scorn 
and detestation of the whole nation." — " Heated by 
mutual commotion, they proceeded to the most 
enormous excesses." — " Blessed with concord at 
home, and victory abroad, it saw its trade and influ- 
12 



134 APPENDIX. 

ence extended beyond the example of any former 
period." 

In respect to this construction of a sentence I 
think Mr. Burke differs from Junius. In his elo- 
quent and long speech on American Taxation in 
1774, there are but one or two instances, and not 
more than two or three, as I believe, in his Reflec- 
tions on the Revolution in France. This is not 
then a peculiarity in his style, as it is in that of Ju- 
nius. Indeed, in his learned Essay on the Sublime 
and Beautiful, written before the letters of Junius, 
there is not, I believe, in the whole volume one in- 
stance of a sentence, constructed like those now un- 
der consideration. 

The sarcastic manner, in which the writer of this 
history speaks of general Abercrombie, indicates a 
personal pique : — " Two thousand men were miss- 
ing. Another officer would upon the arrival of his 
artillery have led such a superior force again to the 
charge ; but this prudent gentleman gained, on the 
very evening of the action, his former camp to the 
southward of Lake George. So much for Aber- 
crorabie's generalship ! " — The indignant feelings of 
Sackville can be accounted for, when it is recollect- 
ed, that Abercrombie was one of the officers, consti- 
tuting the Court for the trial of Sackville in 1760. 1 
think no one, undertaking to write an impartial his- 



APPENDIX. 135 

toiy, could, without the influence of personal feel- 
ings, have uttered the words — " So much for Jiher- 
cromhie's generalship ! " 

It may strengthen the proofs brought forward to 
consider the points of resemblance between the Re- 
ply to Burgoyne, evidently a production of lord 
Sackville, and ' The History of the Reign of George 
III.' I find in those works one mode of expression, 
which I have never elsewhere met with, excepting 
once in a speech ascribed to Mr. Wilkes, May 5, 
1763; and that, I am persuaded, was sent to the 
press by Sackville, the author of the North Briton. 

History. " Was ever independent Majesty af- 
fronted with a proposition of such arrogance and 
despotism?" — " All these circumstances rushed upon 
the mind, and forced it to form conclusions not very 
favorable to Majesty.''^ 

Reply. " That I may not violate that respect, 
which I feel for Majesty, I will not be so arrogant as 
to enquire upon what grounds, it is probable, that the 
royal judgment was formed." 

The Speech of Mr. Wilkes. " Throw every 
odious charge from themselves upon Majesty.'''' 
This speech was published in St. James Chronicle 
May 5, 1763, introduced thus — " It is said, the fol- 
lowing speech." In Chronicle, May 24, are twenty 
Queries, relating to the General Warrant, Uc. which 



136 APPENDIX. 

surely Wilkes never wrote. In that I find the ex^ 
pression — " the sacred dignity of Royalty." 

HiSTOKY. " We will be ruined, it seems, by 
victories, as vfell as defeats ; we will be a singular 
example," he. — will for shall, being a tinge of the 
Irish. 

Reply. " If you tell us, that it is the privilege of 
anger to rail, we will agree with you," &;c. 

The following points of resemblance have oc- 
curred between the Considerations and the Reign of 
George III. 

Considerations. " That Britain should thus' 
move heaven and earth and risk every danger to pre- 
vent it." 

History. " Would return to their respective 
constituents, and in moving heaven and earth to gain 
their election would augment the ill liumor, which is 
already too prevalent. 337. 

Considerations. " They are driven out of 
Germany. Be it so." 83. 

History. " But he must, forsooth, be consider- 
ed as the great protector of the reformed religion. 
Be it so." 104. 

Considerations. Who would embroil the Elec- 
torate with the Empire." — 59. "Raised him up to 
embroil one part of Germany." — 72. " And em- 
broiling our allies." 97. 



APPENDIX. 



137 



' History. " Whose highest wish, at present, was 
to embroil the empire." — " The embroiled state of 
their affairs." 

Considerations. " JVot to mention, that in the 
present case it seems to be exhausting." he. 135. 

History. " JVot to mention the privilege of 
parliament, which was flagrantly violated." 171. 

Considerations. "Employed in enabling those, 
who should be our allies, to cut each other'^s throats ; 
and it is right, for this only reason, that Britain must 
have its continental connections." 118. 

History. "The ruffian ordered the Indians un- 
der his command to cut their throats.^'' 

I am aware it may be said, that if Sackviile was 
the author of the History of the Reign of George 
III., he would not have censured himself in speak- 
ing of the battle of Minden. Let us examine his 
words : — " Six British regiments with the Hanoveri- 
an guards gained the battle of Minden. Seeing their 
center discomfited, and their right making no im- 
pression on Wangenheim, they thought of nothing 
but a retreat. At this critical moment had lord 
Sapkville according to orders poured in his cavalry 
upon the dismayed French, they would in all proba- 
bility have been left without an army in Germany. 
By some unaccountable fatality he did not execute 
this essential service, and missed a fair opportunity 
12* 



138 APPENDIX. 

of being ranked with the Marlboroughs and Bruns- 
wicks." p. 57. 

On the supposition, that Sackville was the author 
of this book, which was written with precisely the 
object of Junius, — that of overthrowing the minis- 
try, — it was important, that Sackville should keep 
concealed. If he should apparently censure him- 
self, he would not be suspected. Yet what is the 
amount of this censure? A court martial had ten 
years before decided, that he had disobeyed orders. 
But even this is not allowed by the historian ; and 
the affair is left in the darkness of " some unaccount- 
able fatality." Had it not been for this, Sackville 
might have been ranked with Marlborough ! Surely 
this is not severe rebuke. It is no more, than might 
be expected to be said by Sackville, if Sackville was 
the historian. 

That he was, is confirmed by several circumstan- 
ces. If Burke was the writer, why should he seek 
concealment? The motives of Sackville are obvi- 
ous. He wished to displace the obstacles to his 
own advancement, and at the same time not to 
create enemies, who would prevent it. It was ne- 
cessary then to shoot his arrows from an unseen 
place. 

The writer says in the preface — " Unconnected 
with any party, he has given vent to the spontaneous 



APPENDIX. 139 

dictates of his heart." Who could say this so truly 
as Sackville ? He was operating only for himself. 
Yet almost his last words in the book, showing his 
aira in writing it, are — " Before all is lost, let us act 
with vigor and bring home the charge to individu- 
als ; LET us IMPEACH THE GUILTY MINISTERS." 

The following is an extraordinary sentence in the 
preface. " The character and conduct of our late 
ministers have been such, that a man of any feeling, 
or soul, can hardly contain his indignation. The 
compiler of these pages confesses, that in suppressing 
many reflections upon them, he has done violence 
to his own nature. Had he not considered what 
was due to his own character, more than what their 
measures deserved, he would have painted them in 
stronger colors. Instead of complaining of his as- 
perity, they ought to thank him for his lenity." 

Now, if the anonymous historian was an untitled, 
literary drudge, who intended to keep in conceal- 
ment ; is it conceivable, that he would speak in this 
manner ? Are there not here indications of a man 
of rank and eminence, — regarding himself as on a 
level with the king's ministers or superior to them j 
— a man of strong passions, inflamed with bitter 
hostility, yet pretending to be under the restraints, 
which every gentleman imposes upon himself ? Do 
not all these traits belong to lord Sackville ? 



140 APPENDIX. 

It is not a consideration to be utterly neglected in 
this survey of circumstantial evidence, that in the 
title page is a long quotation from Tacitus, and in 
the book various classical allusions. Junius also 
quotes this writer and says — " The text is in Taci- 
tus — ^you best know where to look for the com- 
mentary." — The author of the Considerations also 
quotes Cicero and Seneca. 

In respect to the sentiments of the Historian of 
the Reign of George III., they correspond with the 
sentiments of Junius and of the author of the Con- 
siderations. He was evidently opposed to German 
connexions and to a continental war. He had no 
regard for the Scotch. He says — '' It is certain, 
that one may live for years in Scotland without 
hearing the word liberty pronounced by the popu- 
lace." He supports Wilkes, on public reasons, and 
blames Chatham for abandoning him. In short, the 
sentiments of the book are those of Junius, and such 
as are suitable to lord Sackville. 

I must confess, that I do not find in the History 
such an accordance with Junius, as I expected, in 
the use of the preposition and conjunction after a 
verb and at the close of a sentence. Possibly 
the publisher may have removed such imperfec- 
tions, as he might deem them, or the inspector of 
the press might have interposed in such slight chan- 



APPENDIX. 141 

ges. I find however the following — " Is not then 
every member of parliament, who has committed, 
who is falsely accused of, these acts." — " They 
were so.'''' — " This house has done so in former 
instances." — " If the disgrace, which ensues, be not 
thought an adequate punishment, we presume the 
majority will allow the expense of a second election 
is so." — " At this rate, were the house to resolve, 
that London has no right to send four members to 
parliament, and then to declare, that this was law ; 
it must he so.''^ 



II. Junius the Author of " The JVorth Briton.'''' 

The first number of the celebrated political pa- 
per, ' The North Briton,' was published June 5, 
1762; the last, the number 45, was published April 
23, 1763. There was however a solitary number, 
12 November. The publisher was Mr. George 
Kearsly, London. For suspicion of being the au- 
thor of number 45, containing keen remarks on the 
King's speech, a General Warrant was issued against 
Mr. Wilkes, which led to the great discussion con- 
cerning General Warrants. On the ground oi priv- 
ilege, as a member of the House of Commons, Mr. 
Wilkes escaped, by decision of chief justice Pratt, 
afterwards lord Camden ; but for setting up a press 
in his own house at a subsequent period, and re- 
printing the obnoxious number, he was prosecuted 
and had a sentence of outlawry passed against him, 
as he had fled to France. 

That Junius, or lord Sackville, was the author of 
* The North Briton,' and particularly of No. 45, is, 
in my judgment, for reasons which I shall allege ancjf 



APPENDIX. 143 

submit to the judgment of others, placed beyond a 
doubt. 

In the first place there is no evidence, that Mr. 
Wilkes ever publicly claimed to be the author of the 
North Briton. It has been considered as a v^ork, 
written by various hands, or by a club of politicians. 
The Editor of the Letters to and from Mr. Wilkes, 
1 769, says — " Some of the numbers have been as- 
cribed to Mr. Wilkes, others to Mr. Churchill, and 
Mr. Lloyd." I am satisfied, that neither of these 
gentlemen wrote any part of the work, unless per- 
haps Mr. Wilkes was the writer of a solitary com- 
munication, not the number 45. 

Mr. Wilkes was not the author of the North 
Briton. The author, at the request of Mr. Wilkes, 
inserted his letter to Dr. Burton, and the answer, in 
No. 21, but would not insert other letters, which 
Mr. Wilkes wished to have inserted. That number 
begins thus, — " As the attack, which was made on 
the 30th of September by my good friend the Au- 
ditor, on a Gentleman of known reputation [Mr. 
Wilkes], took its rise entirely from a supposition of 
that Gentleman's being concerned in this paper, — 
we think it our duty to take every occasion, which 
ofiers, of giving the injured party the most public 
^ opportunities of vindicating his innocence," Sec. 



144 APPENDIX. 

This number was published November 23. Ear- 
ly in the preceding month Mr. Wilkes had fought a 
duel, of which the following is the history. 

In the North Briton, No. 12, published August 
21 J lord Talbot was exposed to derision, in conse- 
quence of which he challenged Mr. Wilkes. This 
circumstance may account for the friendship of Ju- 
nius, if Junius was Sackville, to Mr. Wilkes. The 
writer said — " Not only real services, but every 
species of elegance and refinement in the polite arts 
may, I think, without censure, be rewarded with a 
pension. A politeness equal to that of lord Talbot's 
— horse, ought not to pass unnoticed. At the coro- 
nation he paid a new, and, for a horse, singular re- 
spect to his sovereign. I appeal to applauding mul- 
titudes, who were so charmed, as to forget every 
rule of decency, and to clap even in the royal pres- 
ence, whether his or his lord^s dexterity on that day 
did not surpass any courtiers. Caligula's horse had 
not half the merit. We remember how nobly he 
was provided for." 

Now this was a circumstance, to which Mr. 
Wilkes would not have been likely to attach any 
importance, but which one, conversant with eti- 
quette, like Sackville, would have seized upon. 
Talbot, having heard, that Wilkes had claimed to 
be one of the writers of the North Briton, required 



APPENDIX. 145 

him to acknowledge or disclaim the offensive paper. 
He refused to do either, saying, " I must first insist 
on knowing your lordship's right to catechise me 
about an anonymous paper." 

At the time the paper was pubhshed, Mr. Wilkes 
was at Winchester, sixty miles from London. He 
was also there, when several subsequent numbers 
were published. There is no reason to think, that 
a man of pleasure and business could find leisure 
for writing the North Briton every week. In his 
letter to Talbot, dated Winchester, September 21, 
he says — " You are pleased to say, that it is my own 
declaration before men of truth and honor, that I 
occasionally assisted the paper, called the North 
Briton. I wish your lordship had been more expli- 
cit, and had mentioned the name of any one gentle- 
man, before whom I made that declaration. Was it 
made in public ? or was it in private conversation ? " 
— " I intend to make a tour on Thursday (23d) to 
the Isle of Wight." 

I am persuaded, the fact is, as the appearance 
seems to be, that Mr. Wilkes had boasted of what 
was not true, — of being a contributor to the North 
Briton. In this dilemma I believe he the next day 
wrote a long letter to the author of the North Brit- 
on, dated September 22, signed William Temple, 
and which the author says he received from Trow- 
13 



146 APPENDIX. 

bridge in Wiltshire, a place, which Mr. Wilkes 
might have taken in his tour. This was published 
in No. 19, and would enable Mr. Wilkes to say 
what he could not say before, that he was a contrib- 
utor. The letter is not in the style of the North 
Briton, though commended by the author as glow- 
ing " throughout with the true spirit of liberty." As 
Wilkes had fought a duel between the writing and 
the publication of it, on account of the North Brit- 
on, the author would naturally praise him. Another 
circumstance is worth consideration. To this num- 
ber there is appended a letter from Mr. Wilkes him- 
self, asserting the falsehood of a certain story in the 
Auditor concerning him. 

The author of the North Britain, in introducing 
the letter of William Temple, has the peculiar or- 
thography of Junius, ' intire for entire ' ; but Mr. 
Wilkes, at the end of the same number, writes ' en- 
tire.' Doubtless the printer followed the manu- 
script. The writer of this letter uses certain words 
and phrases, never, 1 am persuaded, found in the 
North Briton nor in Junius ; — as " we must con- 
fess," instead of the invariable phrase, " I must con- 
fess." Also, 'Well;'— 'by the bye ;'—' remark 
him ! ' — ' wriggle themselves into power,' three or 
four times ; — and some other expressions, which the 
superior taste and decorum of the author of the 



APPENDIX. 147 

North Briton could not have permitted him to em- 
ploy. Besides, the author, I think, could have no 
motive to represent the letter as coming from Trow- 
bridge, unless it had actually come from Wiltshire. 

The letter of William Temple, I am persuaded, 
is the only article, which Mr. Wilkes wrote for the 
North Briton. 

In respect to Mr. Churchill, the author in 
No. 11 expressly denies, that he was concerned in 
the North Briton, but speaks of him in high terms ; 
" the literary world is indebted to that manly genius 
for some of the noblest productions of our age and 
language, which will Uve and be admired by posteri- 
ty, after all our short-lived political offspring have 
perished." 

As to Mr. Lloyd, the author has inserted his 
poem, " The Poetry Professors " in Nos. 22 and 
26 ; but the author of the North Briton is very dif- 
ferent from the poet, whom he praises, and whose 
poetry he introduces for the purpose of ridiculing 
the ' versemanship' on account of the birth of a 
prince, of Oxford and Cambridge. 

Every reader of the North Briton must perceive, 
that the author was one, and that he had one steady 
aim — to overthrow the ministry and raise himself ta 
office. The first sentence is in the very spirit of 
Junius — " The liberty of the press is the birth-right 



148 APPENDIX. 

of a Briton, and is justly esteemed the firmest bul- 
wark of the liberties of this country. It has been 
the terror of all bad ministers," &:c. In the first 
number, lord Mansfield, to whom Sackville and 
Junius bore an inveterate enmity, is attacked : 
" Let me beg of you, Mr. Monitor, do commit trea- 
son : pray be taken up by Carrington and tried by 
Mansfield : his regard to the liberty of the subject 
is known, and his tender mercies will not be cruel- 
ty." In the 7th number he is called lord ' Womans- 
meadow.' In the 14th number: — " I should like to 
see this very moral Codex Buteanus, illustrated with 
the German commentaries of count Mansfeldt, that 
accomplished civilian, and justly renowned, not so 
much indeed for nervous, manly sense, as for spin- 
ning the most curious webs of artful sophistry, finer 
and slighter than the very gossamer." He is after- 
wards assaulted. Let it now be asked, what ordi- 
nary political writer would have felt this inveterate 
hostility to lord Mansfield ? 

The author of the North Briton had evidently 
much at stake, and had taken the most prudent 
measures in order to avoid detection. In No. 27 
he says- — " Not content with thus basely flying from 
their colors themselves, they tempt me to follow the 
infamous example ; and as an inducement thereto, 
propose the consideration of my own safety, — ^I^et 



APPENDIX. 149 

them point out, if they can, and if they dare, frona 
whom, and on what account, I am in danger, before 
they produce it as a motive to affect my conduct j 
and plainly shall they prove, that I have deserved 
punishment, before they shall oppress me with the 
fear of it." 

The author was evidently alarmed, from the con- 
finement of some persons concerned in the Monitor, 
of which he was doubtless the author of Nos. 357, 
and 360, published May 22, and June 12, 1762. 
Again he speaks of ' the liberty of the press, that 
bulwark of the liberties of the people.' In No. 32 
the North Briton speaks as an individual, and claims 
the credit, merited " by a faithful and close regard 
to truth, the great object of all his political enqui- 
ries." In No. 37 he says — "professing always a 
regard to decency, as well as to my own safety.''^ 
In No. 44, " Inclination there is, no doubt, to silence 
the North Briton, but a consciousness of guilt pre- 
vents its being carried into execution -, and however 
they may deal out large promises, and thunder forth 
empty threats, that impudent libeller, as they are 
pleased to call, but cannot, or dare not prove him, 
shall still pursue the path, in which he has hitherto 
trod; and whilst he finds the opposition, which is 
now gathering over the minister's head," &;c. — 
" The laws of my country are my protection ; my 
13* 



150 APPENDIX. 

only patron is the Public, to which 1 will ever 
make my appeal, and hold it sacred." 

Mr. Wilkes never expressly claimed to be the 
author of the celebrated number 45. On the con- 
trary, in his petition to the King, March 4, 1768, he 
speaks of the ministers, who had " imagined him to 
be the principal author" of their overthrow, — allud- 
ing to the North Briton — and adds — " I have been 
the innocent but unhappy victim of their revenge." 

In a speech, which Mr. Wilkes made at the bar 
of the Court of Common Pleas, May, 1763, he said 
— " I am accused of being the author of the JVorth 
Briton, No. 45. — The author of this paper, whoever 
he may be, has, upon constitutional principles, done 
directly the reverse, and is therefore, in me, the sup- 
posed author, meant to be persecuted accordingly." 

In the third place, I think Mr. W^ilkes was incapa- 
ble of writing that paper. I mean, that it has some 
peculiarities of style, not found in his productions; 
some excellencies of style, which he could not 
reach. The longest undoubted paper of Mr. 
Wilkes, which 1 have seen, is an Introduction to the 
History of England, &c. in 34 pages. I cannot 
find in this Introduction any of the characteristics of 
North Briton No. 45 ; but in this number I do find 
striking indications of the pen of Junius ; — the same 
selection of words and; plirases, and the same point- 



APPENDIX. 151 

ed and polished sentences. I will first exhibit some 
of the words and phrases, and then a few sentences, 
which, I think, to every one conversant with the 
letters of Junius, will present strong features of re- 
semblance. 

" He is really fearful of falling into involuntary 
errors." — " Govern by the three wretched tools of 
his power, who to their indelible infamy have sup- 
ported the most odious of his measures, the late ig- 
nominious peace,^^ Stc. — " Seems clear to a demon- 
stration — ^I mean the dictating," &;c. — " Pledged 
himself a firm and intrepid assertor of the rights." — 
" Abandoned instance of ministerial effrontery ever 
attempted to be imposed upon mankind." — " Not to 
be paralleled.'''' — " I am in doubt whether," Sic. — 
" I am sure — will hold the minister in contempt and 
abhorrence.''^ — " The infamous fallacy of this whole 
sentence." — " Meanly arrogate to himself a share in 
the fame," &;c. — "Our wre^cAet? negotiators." — "So 
vainly boasted o/"." — " I will venture to say he must 
by this time be ashamed o/." — " The creatures of 
the minister." — " Lord Ligonier is now no longer at 
the head of the army ; but lord Bute in effect is : I 
mean, that every preferment," &;c." — " Enormous 
influence." — " Creatures of the Scottish faction." — 
" In point of military force complimented away." 
— " See the honor of the crown religiously assert- 



153 APPENDIX. 

efZ." — " The prerogative of the crown is to exert 
the constitutional powers entrusted to it." 

" Every friend of his country must lament, that a 
prince of so many great and amiable qualities, whom 
England truly reveres, can be brought to give the 
sanction of his sacred name to the most odious 
measures, and to the most unjustifiable public de- 
clarations, from a throne ever renowned for truth, 
honor, and unsullied virtue." — " They have sent the 
spirit of discord through the land, and I will prophe- 
cy, that it will never be extinguished, but by the ex- 
tinction of their power." — " The spirit of concord 
hath not gone forth among them ; but the spirit of 
liberty has, and a noble opposition has been given to 
the wicked instruments of oppression." — " The min- 
istry are not ashamed of doing the thing in private ; 
they are only afraid of the publication." 

I might proceed with quotations ; but I deem any 
more unnecessary. If by the diligent study of Ju- 
nius I have acquired any skill in discerning his spirit 
and style, I see them in this No. 45 ; — and of the 
power of writing this number the known productions 
of Wilkes furnish no promise. 

The mysterious manner, in which the name of 

SackviUe is introduced into this number, has much 

the appearance of a purpose of removing from him 

the suspicion of being the author. — " Was it a ten- 



APPENDIX. 153 

der regard for the honor of the late king, or of his 
present majesty, that invited to court lord George 
Sackville in these first days of peace, to share in the 
general satisfaction, which all good courtiers receiv- 
ed in the indignity offered to lord Ligonier ? " Stc. — 
On the accession of George the III., the earl of 
Bute invited Sackville to court ; but his appearance 
there caused a great excitement, and he appeared 
no more during that administration. He thought 
himself duped in the affair by the earl of Bute, 
against whom he felt a strong indignation. Junius 
espouses the cause of lord Ligonier. 

Let us now see in what manner lord Sackville 
speaks of the North Briton. In an elegant speech 
in thjB House of Commons, December, 1770, he 
says — "Juries will not convict petty delinquents, 
when, they suspect, grand criminals go unpunished. 
Hence hbels and lampoons, audacious beyond the 
example of all other times ; libels in comparison of 
which the Nokth Briton, once deemed the ne plus 
ultra of sedition, is perfect innocence and simplicity. 
The sacred number, forty-Jive, formerly the idol of 
the multitude, is eclipsed by the superior venom of 
every day's defamation : all its magical and talis- 
manic powers are lost and absorbed in the general 
deluge of scandal, which pours from the press. 
When matters are thus circumstanced, when the 



154 APPENDIX. 

judges in general, and lord Mansfield in particular^ 
are there hung out to public scorn and detestation," 
&;c. 

Now this speech was on a motion to inquire into 
the administration of criminal justice ; and it urged 
. the inquiry, and under a pretence of friendship to 
lord Mansfield it was evidently hostile to him, par- 
taking of the spirit of Junius' letter to Mansfield, 
written in the preceding month. I cannot doubt, 
that here was the author of the Sacred Number 45 
and the author of Junius' letter to lord Mansfield, 
alluding, in his conscious security and in proud ela- 
tion of mind, to both those productions, and under 
the disguise of candor still pursuing his stern and 
determined aim, to urge his way to office and rank. 
I much doubt, whether in the history of the world 
a more striking example can be found of steadfast, 
immoveable purpose, and of persevering and singu- 
lar toil in the chase of a shadow. He began his 
attack on the ministry by his " Considerations on the 
German War" in 1760. The North Briton began 
June 5, 1762, and continued till November 12, 
1763. The History of the Reign of George IIL 
appeared in 1770. The letters of Junius extended 
from 1769 to 1773. He doubtless published many 
other pamphlets and addresses to the public. Junius 
says, 15 August, 1771 — "I cannot recall to my 



APPENDIX. 155 

memory the numberless trifles, that I have written; 
— but I rely upon the consciousness of my ovA'^n in- 
tegrity, and defy him to fix any colorable charge of 
inconsistency upon me." 

Through all the numbers of the North Briton I 
have found, as I believe, the peculiarities of style, 
which belong to lord Sackville and to Junius ; of 
which I will furnish a few specimens, referring the 
reader to the corresponding passages already quoted 
from Sackville and Junius. 

"The insinuations thrown out;" — "thrown out 
much abuse;" — "to have thrown out thoughts;" 
— "able to screen such evil counsellors;" — "to 
screen themselves behind the throne ; " — " such a 
man will go all lengths to raise a laugh ; " — " to run 
all lengths;" — "i confess;" — " I must confess" 
frequently ; — " I own ; " — " 1 affirm ; " — " I venture 
to say ; " — " their navy was so formidable ; " — 
"make the badness of his heart more formidable ;" 
— "struck a blow;" — the constant use of the words 
" assert, assertion, exert, exertion, scruple, really, 
surely, enormous, infamous, wretch, wretched;" — 
" Entitle, wclose, inivce," for entitle, &;c. ; — " beyond 
all doubt ; " — "juncture ; " — "practicable, imprac- 
ticable ; " — " the trial by jury — the sacred palladi- 
um of liberty." — " Enquiry," whereas Wilkes writes 
"Inquiry." Sackville, in a letter, 1745, of which 



156 APPENDIX. 

Coventry gives a fac-simile, has " enquired, enquir- 
ing." In Woodfall's edition of Junius the words are 
found promiscuously, " enquire and inquire, enquiry 
and inquiry." It is probable, that the author of the 
letters of Junius wrote in both ways. 

Even the defects as to grammar are such, as be- 
long to Sackville and Junius : " dissensions have 
arose ; " — " a Roman spirit has rose against them 
Tiere;" — ^^'is from necessity drove to ask peace;" — 
"has hroke through;" — "the earl of Mar too had 
wrote the warmest letter ; " — " I wish were wrote in 
letters of gold ; " — " an Englishman would have 
wrote." 

From the frequent military allusions, there is rea- 
son to believe the author was a soldier, who had 
seen real service j and from repeated mention of 
occurrences in a " certain great assembly, " there is 
reason to believe he was a member of the House of 
Commons. 

But beyond all these separate probabilities the 
sentiments, the antithesis, and the sentences of the 
North Briton prove, that he was Junius. 

Take the following instances : — " Give them more 
reason to complain of our being rich, than ever they 
had to reproach us with our being poor." — "The 
same consideration of interest, which then made us 
false, would now make us true." — " As we have 



APPENDIX. 157 

had the address to obtain, I trust we shall have the 
resolution to preserve them." No. 4. — " Such 
comparisons, as no man of sense could and no true 
Briton ought to draw." — " To his enemies it is mat- 
ter of triumph, though to his friends it shall never be 
the cause of shame." Speaking of Mr. Pitt — " Our 
enemies were convinced he would make a good 
peace or none at all j he was so jealous of his minis- 
terial reputation, and so envious of those, who should 
succeed him, that in order to prevent their doing of 
any thing, he left litde or nothing for them to do." 
No. 8. — " A rank and infamous falsehood, which he 
hath neither courage to maintain, nor honesty to ac- 
knowledge." No. 21. — " Can we weigh their prin- 
ciples, and not suspect their actions ? " — " Instead of 
evidencing a change of principles, declares, that they 
have no principles at all." No. 33. — " They show- 
ed their strength as well as their venom." No. 36. 
— " They may for a short time endanger our little 
world ; but their own ruin will be the certain conse- 
quence." — " Their fall will be unpitied ; their mem- 
ories forever detested." — " The very great and ex- 
cessive complaisance of the associates in power, if 
he will suffer them to be called associates, whom he 
never suffers to act as such, in embracing his perni- 
cious doctrines, and falling in implicitly with his fatal 
measures ; their joining to give up in peace what we 
14 



158 APPENDIX. 

had gained in war ; their taking such steps, as not 
only partially affect the property, but strike deeply 
at the liberty of the subject, have weaned the affec- 
tions of the people from those few members in the 
administration, in whom they had reposed some lit- 
tle confidence, and encreased their suspicions in re- 
gard to those, whose former behavior had not enti- 
tled them to any confidence at all." No. 44. — 
" Stupidity may not apprehe^id, or sophistry may 
sometimes seem to elude the strongest reasonings, 
but the evidence of facts is irresistible." No. 9. 

In examining the writings of Mr. Wilkes I cannot 
find any trace of the footsteps of the lion. Over 
those sands the king of the desart never walked. 

" The North Briton speaks of clergymen in the 
very style of Junius : " The ecclesiastics are an art- 
ful, subtle, and powerful body in all countries : their 
eyes, however dim to other things, are remarkably 
quick to every thing, which concerns their own in- 
terests : they are generally proud, revengeful, and 
implacable." — " Safer indeed will our nation always 
find it to attack a Savior, than a Surplice, to rase 
out the four evangelists than to shew an inclination 
for plucking one spiritual ear of English corn." 
No. 10. 

Compare this with Junius : " The resentment of 
a priest is implacable ; no sufferings can soften, no 



APPENDIX. 159 

penitence can appease him." — " No, my lord, it was 
the solitary, vindictive malice of a monk, &£c. Novs^ 
let him go back to his cloister. The church is a 
proper retreat for him. In his principles he is al- 
ready a bishop." Compare also the following : 

North Briton. " A doctrine, which many pre- 
ceding monarchs had endeavored to establish by 
cmining, but which the Stuarts first openly avowed, 
and would have confirmed by force." No. 33. 

Sackville's Speech, 1770. " Surely it is the 
duty of his parliament to guard him against the in- 
sidious artifices of those, who, having rendered 
themselves odious by their conduct, have nothing 
more to do, but to render themselves secure by 
their cunning." 

As Junius sometimes wrote under the signature 
of Lucius, the following extract from North Briton, 
number 36, is worth consideration : — " The younger, 
Brutus, who delivered Rome from the tyranny of 
Caesar, was descended from the patriot stem of Lu- 
cius Junius Brutus, who expelled the Tarquins. 
His countrymen were continually making a kind of 
family claim on him to stand forth their deliverer, 
and to emulate the glories of his godlike ancestor." 

Junius says, September 7, 1771, — ^^ 1 have serv- 
ed Mr. Wilkes, and am still capable of serving him." 
But when had Junius done this, unless he was the 



160 APPENDIX. 

North Briton, who published Mr. Wilkes' letter to 
Burton, and, particularly, who defended him in re- 
gard to the general warrant by writing the Queries 
in St. James' Chronicle, May 24, 1763, and by 
preparing for that paper the Speeches, ' said to be 
made ' by Mr. Wilkes ? Surely Junius had not serv- 
ed Mr. Wilkes by speaking ironically of his ' patriot- 
ism, as thriving by persecution,' nor by these terms 
in the letter to the king December 19, 1769 ; — 
"Pardon this man the remainder of his punishment. 
— He will soon fall back into his natural station ', — a 
silent senator, and hardly supporting the weekly elo- 
quence of a newspaper. The gentle breath of peace 
would leave him on the surface, neglected and unre- 
moved. It is only the tempest, that lifts him from 
his place." 

Of this discipline Wilkes himself piteously said in 
his letter to Junius, September 12, 1771 — " He has 
poured balm into my wounds, the deepest of which 
I sigh, when I recollect, were made by that now 
friendly hand. I am always ready to kiss his rod, 
but I hope its destination is changed," &z;c. 

The North Briton, No. 12 says — " The word^e*i- 
sion has of late much puzzled our politicians. I do 
not recollect, that any one of them has ventured at a 
definition of it. Mr. Johnson, as he is now a,j>en- 
sioner, one should naturally have recourse to for the 



APPENDIX. 161 

truest literary information on this subject. His de- 
finition then of a pension is, A71 allowance made to 
any one ivithout an equivalent. In England it is 
generally understood to mean, pay given to a state 
hireling for treason to his country. And under the 
woxA pensioner we read, 1. a dependant; 2. a slave 
of state, hired by a stipend to obey his master. But, 
with submission to this great prodigy of learning, 1 
should think both definitions very erroneous. Is the 
said Mr. Johnson a dependant'^ or is he a slave of 
state, hired by a stipend to obey his master ? " The 
writer then ironically represents Johnson as deserv- 
ing a royal pension, on account of his gentleman- 
like compliments to his majesty's grandfather and 
his decent treatment of the parliament. " No man, 
who has read only one poem of his, London, but 
must congratulate the good sense and discerning 
spirit of the minister, who bestows such a part of the 
public treasure on this distinguished friend of the 
public, of his master's family, and of the constitution 
of this country." 

In another part he says — " Neither of you have 
reached the force and closeness of expression in the 
great lexicographer, Mr. Johnson, who defines a 
Favorite to be a mean wretch, whose whole business 
is by any means to please. But whether the word 
has been well defined or not, in former periods of 
14* 



163 APPENDIX. 

the English history, the effect of it has been very 
fully felt, and even at this hour it is never uttered 
without the most unjust passion and ill founded re- 
sentment, as if the nation was now smarting from 
the sad consequences of its reality and exertion in 
pride and insolence." 

The reasons for believing this number of the 
North Briton to have been written by Sackville are 
the violent attack on the earl of Bute,- — references 
to mathematical definitions and to books of fortifica- 
tion, which are not very likely to have come from 
Mr. Wilkes, though he was a colonel, — the reference 
to " the memorable year 1746," when Sackville 
fought against the rebels — but of which year Wilkes 
could have known but little, then but 18 years of 
age, — the ridicule of lord Litchfield for his re- 
missness at that period, — and the terms, in which 
Mr. Pitt is spoken of. 

I am persuaded, that Sackville also wrote 'A 
North Briton Extraordinary,' which was printed^ 
but not published April 17, 1763. Junius, in writing 
to Mr. Woodfall, speaks of one of his letters as being 
worth ' a whole North Briton Extraordinary.' Be- 
sides this uncommon remark, the style is that of 
Junius. "Mr. Pitt's resolution arose from conscious 
virtue, and the earl of Bute's from conscious pow- 
er:" &ic. 



APPENDIX. 163 

Of Junius Dr. Johnson says, in his ' Thoughts on 
the Transactions respecting Falkland's Islands,' 1771 
— " This thirst of blood, however the visible promot- 
ers of sedition may think it convenient to shrink from 
the accusation, is loudly avowed by Junius, the 
writer, to whom his party owes much of its pride, 
and some of its popularity. Of Junius it cannot be 
said, as of Ulysses, that he scatters ambiguous ex- 
pressions among the vulgar; for he cries havock 
without reserve, and endeavors to let slip the dogs of 
foreign or of civil war, ignorant whither they are 
going, and careless what may be their prey. 

" Junius has sometimes made his satire felt, but 
let not injudicious admiration mistake the venom of 
the shaft for the vigor of the bow. 

" Junius burst into notice with a blaze of impu- 
dence, which has rarely glared upon the world be- 
fore, and drew the rabble after him, as a monster 
makes a show. When he had once provided for his 
safety by impenetrable secrecy, he had nothing to 
combat but truth and justice, enemies whom he 
knows to be feeble in the dark. 

" Jimius is an unusual phenomenon, on which 
some have gazed with wonder and some with terror, 
but wonder and terror are transitory passions. He 
will soon be more closely viewed or more attentively 
examined, and what folly has taken for a comet, that 



164 APPENDIX. 

from its flaming hair shook pestilence and war, in- 
quiry will find to be only a meteor, formed by the 
vapors of putrefying democracy, and kindled into 
flame by the effervescence of interest struggling with 
conviction ; which after having plunged its followers 
in a bog, will leave us inquiring why we regard it. 

" Yet, though I cannot think the style of Junius 
secure from criticism, though his expressions are 
often trite, and his periods feeble, I should never 
have stationed him where he has placed himself, 
had I not rated him by his morals rather than his 
facuhies. What, says Pope, must be the priest, 
where a monkey is the god? What must be the 
drudge of a party, of which the heads are Wilkes 
and Crosby, Sawbridge and Townsend ? " 

It will be considered a curious circumstance, if 
Junius, whom Johnson thus assails, should prove to 
be the North Briton, who had previously endeavor- 
ed to overwhelm ^^ Pensioner Johnson" with ridi- 
cule. Nor will it be the less curious, that " the 
meteor, formed by the vapors of a putrefying democ- 
racy," as Johnson deemed in 1771, should, in 1775, 

the year in which Johnson wrote his 'Taxation 

no Tyranny,' — be a chosen Minister of his Majesty, 
and the adviser and stern supporter of all the meas- 
ures, which were adopted to maintain the claims of 
royalty and to subjugate the rebellious colonies. In 



APPENDIX. 165 

Johnson's eyes this " meteor of democracy," — ^lord 
Sackville, — was in 1775 doubtless a bright planet, 
revolving around the dazzling luminary of Royalty. 

If Sackville was the author of the History of the 
Reign of George III., Dr. Johnson was not alone in 
forming a mlstal^en judgment of the political senti- 
ments of the writer of the letters of Junius, and in 
ascribing to Democratic or Republican principle 
what is to be attributed to the rancor of party, or the 
violence of ambition. The Monthly Review says of 
the author of the History — " He appears to be inti- 
mately acquainted with what the Authors of antiqui- 
ty have written concerning liberty and government. 
— ^We should imagine, that he may have imbibed 
from them too large a proportion of that love of 
equality and independence, which, though of the 
greatest advantage in a pure republic, is not alto- 
gether so suitable to the genius and spirit of a limit- 
ed monarchy." 

This indiscreet republican and great lover of in- 
dependence, as he was deemed by the wise Re- 
viewer, was shortly afterwards, as I am persuaded, 
the inflexible minister of royalty and stern foe of 
American liberty, firmly resolved never to acknowl- 
edge the independence of brave colonies, struggling 
for their invaluable, unalienable rights. 



166 



APPENDIX. 



Regarding Sackville as the author of the various 
Works, which have now been ascribed to him, I have 
not formed a very high opinion of his morality. 
There was one steady object in most of them, — to 
overthrow the existing ministry, that he might ele- 
vate himself to office ; and this object was united 
with the indulgence of a spirit of revenge. His 
strong passions were exhibited in the employment of 
the bitterest sarcasms and the most contumelious 
language. His irreverent use of the name of God 
is hardly reconcileable with any well founded prin- 
ciples of morals ; as when he says to his printer, 
December 19, 1769, " For material affection, for 
God's sake, read maternal.''^ So again, March 18, 
1770. "This letter is written wide. — For God's 
sake let it appear to-morrow." Also the idle words, 
' God only knows.' Whether a man, accustomed to 
speak and write in this manner, as unhappily is the 
case with many gentlemen, can be an habitual wor- 
shipper of God and daily influenced in his conduct 
by the fear of the Almighty, or by a regard to his 
approbation,— -the only stable principle of morals, — 
I leave it to the intelligent reader to judge. 

One of the letters of Junius was so shamefully 
indecent, that he had the good sense to exclude it 
from his edition. One can hardly attach much 
eredit to his apology for it, if he was the sole depos- 



APPENDIX. 167 

itory of his own secret : " The last letter you print- 
ed was idle and irnproper, and I assure you printed 
against my own opinion. The truth is, there are 
people about me, whom I would wish not to contra- 
dict, and who had rather see Junius in the paper 
ever so improperly, than not at all. I wish it could 
be recalled. Suppose you were to say — We have 
some reason to suspect, that the last letter, signed 
Junius in this paper, was not written by the real 
Junius." In this suggestion there is little of candor 
and honesty. 

His indulgence to Wilkes indicates but little of 
stoic virtue : " I too am no enemy to good fellow- 
ship, and have often cursed that canting parson [Mr. 
Home] for wishing to deny you your claret. It is 
for him, and men like him to beware of intoxication. 
Though I do not place the little pleasures of life in 
Competition with the glorious business of instructing 
and directing the people, yet I see no reason why a 
wise man may not unite the public virtues of Cato 
with the indulgence of Epicurus." But alas, where 
shall we find public virtue without private ? Is it in 
Wilkes, who made a trade of patriotism, and who, 
deeming " the public a goose," regarded the man as 
a fool, who should hesitate in plucking a feather ? 
Or is it in Junius himself, the once flaming patriot, 
and glorious teacher of the people, forgetting in the 



168 APPENDIX. 

capacity of minister every thing but the interests and 
wishes of his royal master, who might reward him 
with a peerage ? 

Do we find the dignity and calmness of virtue in 
the opprobrious terms of ' wretch, idiot, rascal, fool, 
and villain,' which are scattered through the letters 
of Junius ? 

On what a sandy foundation must that system of 
morals be built, which admits of duelling ? Yet it 
does not appear, that Sackville felt any compunction 
for his violation once, in a private combat, of the 
laws of God and man, nor for the purpose of vio- 
lating them a second time. In that mind, which 
dreads the laugh of a mortal more than the displeas- 
ure of the Almighty, there must be a miserable per- 
version of intellect and of passion. There may be 
a claim to worldly honor j but the pretension to vir- 
tue, to morals, to principle is ridiculous. It is the 
glittering bubble, which is borne along by every 
wave ; the rock remains immoveable amidst the 
fluctuations of the sea. 



NOTES. 

I. 

Since the foregoing work was written, it has been 
stated in the newspapers, copied from the London 
Globe, that " Five letters are deposited in the archives 
of the Grenville family at Stow, which establish, be- 
yond the possibility of doubt, the real author of Junius. 
This eminent individual was politically connected with 
Mr. George Grenville, the grandfather of the present 
Duke of Buckingham, from whom these autograph 
proofs have descended to the present possessor. The 
venerable statesman, nearly allied to the duke of 
Buckingham, has requested the discovery should not 
be published during his life time. — It is however confi- 
dentially asserted, that in all the controversies relating 
to these celebrated letters the author of them has not 
been named." 

Such is the last and newest report: and it deserves 
just as much credit, as many other stories, which have 
had their day and are now forgotten. — If in this notice 
it is intended to suggest, that the author of the letters 
of Junius is now living ; — then he must be indeed a 
"venerable" man, for as it is now more than sixty 
years since Junius began to write, if we allow, that 
when he spoke of his "long experience" he was fifty 
15 



170 NOTES. 

years of age, the venerable statesman is now one hun- 
dred and ten years old ! 

As to the political connexion of Junius with Mr. 
George Grenville ; Junius declared in his letter of July 
29, 1769, that he had not " the honor of being person- 
ally known to him." — There is in fact no evidence, 
that Sackville was personally acquainted with Gren- 
ville. — In respect to autograph letters of Junius being 
in possession of the Grenville family, it is altogether 
improbable, for the letters were generally returned by 
Woodfall to the author. And if some letters of Junius 
are now in the possession of that family, they can be of 
no more value in determining the author, than the auto- 
graph letters, of which fac-similes have long since been 
published by Woodfall. 

However, it is very likely, that in some great families 
in England there are autograph letters of lord George 
Sackville ; nor can I doubt, that if fac-similes of such 
letters, written about the year 1770, were given to the 
public, they would exhibit the same hand-writing, 
which is presented in Woodfall's specimens of Junius. 

It is worthy of remembrance, that when, within three 
or four years past, Mr. Coventry applied to the Duke of 
Dorset, the son of lord Sackville, for permission to ex- 
amine some letters of his father, written from Culloden 
and Minden, the duke observed, that he had not " any 
of his father's letters in his possession." It is very 
probable the duke suspected the inquiry of Mr. Coven- 
try to relate to the author of the letters of Junius. He 



NOTES. 171 

more than once remarked, during the interview with 
Mr. Coventry, " that his father was an injured man ; 
but he believed there never existed one, who naturally 
possessed a better or more susceptible heart." 

Yet the autography of the letters of Junius is not de- 
cisive in the inquiry concerning the author, except on 
the supposition, to which I cannot refuse my assent, 
that he did not employ an amanuensis, unless perhaps 
in the case of the letter to the King. But, if it could 
be proved, that the letters of Junius were not in the 
hand-writing of Sackville ; it would not affect the gen- 
eral argument of this book. It may still be clear, be- 
yond a reasonable doubt, that he was the author of 
those letters. 

Since the foregoing work was written, the following 
extract from the Baron De Stael's Letters on England 
has appeared in the North American Review for Janu- 
ary, 1828 : — " When I took charge of the North Brit- 
on," — said the noted John Wilkes, — " I found it in the 
hands of Churchill and Lloyd, who were men of taste 
and wit. I soon saw, that this would not answer ; and 
giving up all pretensions to elegance of style, I began 
to cry out with all my might, Doivn with the Scotch- 
man ! Down with the Scotchman ! In this way I pretty 
soon despatched lord Bute." — The authority for ascrib- 
ing this speech to Mr. Wilkes does not appear ; but if 
correctly ascribed, it will strengthen the argument 
against his being the author of the North Briton. It is 
here intimated, that the first numbers of that paper did 



172 NOTES. 

not attack lord Bute, and that they are written with 
greater elegance of style, than the latter numbers ; 
neither of which suggestions is founded in truth. The 
original and great object of the North Briton was to 
pull down the Scotchman, or to overthrow the existing 
administration. The very first number ridicules the 
eloquence of the Scot, and obviously refers to him as an 
" insolent, weak, and treacherous minister." The sec- 
ond number is chiefly devoted to the " Scotsman, plant- 
ed at the head of the English treasury." The fourth 
number says, " the Earl of Bute, John Stuart, a 
name ever dear to us, — possesses the first post in the 
state." The fifth number is a most violent attack on 
the "Favorite" in the character of Mortimer, ending 
with the wish, that when power is acquired by profliga- 
cy, and a "court-minion" rules, the prince will, like 
Edward, " crush the aspiring wretch, who mounts to 
power by such ignoble means." Surely this is crying 
out lustily enough — " Down with the Scotchman ! " 

There is such a close relation between the fifth num- 
ber and the thirty-ninth, — such a resemblance in argu- 
ment and the method of attacking lord Bute, — that 
probably no one will doubt, that they both proceeded 
from the same pen ; so that, if Mr. Wilkes did not 
write the early numbers, he did not write the thirty- 
ninth. Indeed, by comparing the various numbers of 
the North Briton, the intelligent reader will not fail to 
be convinced, that with possibly a very few exceptions, 
in which the author made use of the papers sent to 



NOTES. 173 

him, they all bear the evident stamp of the same mind. 
To the same person must be ascribed the " Dedication, 
prefixed to the Fall of Mortimer, to the right honorable 
John, Earl of Bute." 

There are other considerations, tending to prove, 
that Mr. Wilkes did not write the North Briton. — 
Would he, vi'hose profligacy was notorious, have been 
solicitous on account of the pernicious effect of lotte- 
ries ? Would he have written in No. 42 — " Lotteries 
have always been objected to, as promoting a spirit of 
gaming, so peculiarly pernicious to a commercial coun- 
try?" 

The North Briton indicates an intimate acquaintance 
with the state of the finances of the country, the affairs 
of the East India company, the condition of the army, 
and with the political history of England and of other 
countries, which can hardly be ascribed to Mr. Wilkes 
at so early a period of his life, — and much less to Mr. 
Churchill, who had just abandoned the church and de- 
voted himself to profligacy and poetry, or to his friend, 
young Mr. Lloyd ; but which are very appropriate to 
the known character of lord Sackville. 

If it should be asked, how came Churchill to receive 
the profits of the North Briton, as, it is said, was given 
in evidence by the Bookseller, it may be replied, that 
this fact is fatal to the pretensions, as commonly under- 
stood, of Mr. Wilkes to be author and proprietor. If 
lord Sackville was the author, as he could not, without 
danger of detection, receive the profits himself, and 
15* 



174 ■ NOTES. 

could not wish for them ; there is nothing to account 
for, but why he should give them to Mr. Churchill, 
rather than to some other person. And here it is easy 
to suppose various motives ; — admiration of his talents, 
— sympathy with him in his rancorous hostility to the 
Scotch, as manifested by his " Prophecy of Famine," — 
compassion for his poverty, as he had just escaped the 
terrors of a prison by compounding with his creditors, — 
and the desire of enlisting his powers in the attack on 
the ministry. The praise of Churchill in No. 11 has 
already been alluded to. On the supposition, that 
Sackville conducted the North Briton, all obscurities 
and difficulties vanish. The hostility, the rancor, the 
extensive political knowledge, the zeal, the determina- 
tion, the unity of the work are all accounted for. And 
as Mr. Wilkes, after the general warrant issued against 
him as the author, ever afterwards plumed himself with 
the feathers of the noble bird, which did not belong to 
him, it is no wonder, that lord Sackville, who alone was 
acquainted with the secret, should as Junius speak 
contemptuously of the talents of Mr. Wilkes even in 
the height of his fame, and should even tutor him, as 
he did in one of his letters to him, on his making him- 
self too cheap, and lowering his dignity, by showing 
himself so frequently in the streets of the city. 

Mr. Charles Butler, in speaking of Mr. Wilkes, in 
reference to the letters of Junius, says, — " No one, ac- 
quainted with his style, can suspect for a moment, that 
he was the author of them ; the merit of his style was 



NOTES. 175 

simplicity ; he had both gaiety and strength, but to the 
rancorous sarcasm, the lofty contempt, with which 
Junius' Letters abound, no one was a greater stranger, 
than Mr. Wilkes." * But if he was incapable of writ- 
ing the letters of Junius, he was also incapable of writ- 
ing the numbers of the North Briton, which are filled 
with the same sarcasm and the same rancor. 

Mr. Butler and Mr. Wilkes had many conversations 
between the years 1776 and 1784 on the subject of 
Junius' Letters, and made great efforts to discover the 
author. " Mr. Wilkes scouted the notion of Mr. 
Burke's being the author of the letters. His suspicions 
fell on Dr. Butler, bishop of Hereford." But for rea- 
sons very unsatisfactory to Mr. Butler — " Arguing syn- 
thetically, we determined, that Junius must be a resi- 
dent in London, or its environs, firom the immediate 
answers, which he generally gave his adversaries ; that 
he was not an author by profession, from the visible 
improvement, which from time to time was discernible 
in his style ; that he was a man of high rank, from the 
tone of equality, which he seemed to use quite naturally 
in his addresses to persons of rank, and in his expres- 
sions respecting them ; that he was not a profound 
lawyer, from the gross inaccuracy of some of his legal 
expressions ; that he had a personal animosity against 
the king, the duke of Bedford, and lord Mansfield, 
from the bitterness of his expressions respecting them ; 

* Butler's Reminiscences, p. 68. 



176 NOTES. 

that he had lived with military men from the propriety 
of his language on military subjects."* All these con- 
ditions, it has been seen, are answered by the situation 
and character of lord Sackville ; and from these cir- 
cumstances Mr. Butler seems inclined to think the evi- 
dence is stronger in his favor, than in favor of any 
other person. Yet the evidence he deems defective ; 
and upon the whole appears disposed, without evidence, 
to ascribe the authorship of the letters to Mr. Charles 
Lloyd, private secretary of Mr. George Grenville. Dr. 
Parr and others regarded him as the author. The only 
argument in his favor is, that when he died, Junius 
ceased to write. He died January 23, 1773, four days 
after the date of the last letter of Junius. But surely 
this solitary circumstance ought to have very little 
weight. Junius had ceased to write for the public 
long before January 19, the date of his last private 
letter. In some of the letters of Junius, under differ- 
ent signatures, lord Chatham was attacked in a man- 
ner, which could not have proceeded from the secreta- 
ry of Mr. George Grenville, who was the brother-in- 
law and at that time the political friend of lord Chat- 
ham. The Miscellaneous Letters of 16 February and 
23 April, 1768, and October 19, 1770, may be referred to 
on this point. There are yet other insuperable difficul- 
ties in the way of tracing the Letters of Junius to the in- 
stigation of Mr. Grenville, He died November, 1770, 

* Butler's Reminiscences, p. 71. 



NOTES. 177 

when the Letters of Junius were but half written. — 
Having been the associate in office with the duke of 
Bedford, after the resignation of lord Bute, the vehe- 
ment attack of the duke would not have proceeded 
from him. — Mr. Lloyd could not have felt the influence 
of those motives, which only can account for the writ- 
ings of Junius. Besides, Junius, with apparent hones- 
ty, disclaimed any personal acquaintance with Mr. 
Grenville. — Lord Sackville adopted Mr. Grenville's 
views as to America ; and he might have hoped, if Mr. 
Grenville were restored to the ministry, to take office 
with him. 

Junius requested of Woodfall a set of his letters ; — 
" let me have a set, bound in vellum, gilt and lettered, 
as handsome as you can — tlie edges gilt — let the sheets 
be well dried before binding." There is very little rea- 
son to suppose these two vellum volumes are in the 
Grenville family, as Mr. Butler, though a lawyer, sup- 
poses without reason and proof; but, if the argument 
of this book is not fallacious, probably they might be 
found, if they have not been destroyed, in a secret cab- 
inet of the present Duke of Dorset, the son of lord 
George Sackville, 

II. 

The author has unexpectedly, since vnriting the pre- 
ceding note, obtained additional proof in favor of his 
views concerning the origin of the North Briton and of 
the Letters of Junius. The limits of a note will not 



178 



NOTES. 



allow him fully to explain this confirmatory evidence ; 
but he cannot forbear alluding to it and giving a brief 
account of it. 

" The Political Register," a monthly political Jour- 
nal, was publishsd at London by Almon in May, 1767, 
and was continued till June, 1771, or later. This 
work has been ascribed to Wilkes and Lloyd, but erro- 
neously ; for Lloyd was dead, and Wilkes was an out- 
law at Paris, and did not return till 1768. Besides, in 
some of the numbers the character of Mr. Wilkes was 
attacked, though from public views he was generally 
supported. It is certain, then, that Mr. Wilkes was 
not the editor; yet he may have been an occasional 
contributor. 

In this work many of the letters of Junius were re- 
published, and without any intimation, that they had 
been printed in the Public Advertiser. Several of the 
miscellaneous letters of the same writer, under differ- 
ent signatures, were also republished ; as Poplicola, in 
the first number. There are also various communica- 
tions in the Register, evidently from the same pen. 

In the number for March, 1768, there is a piece of 
fourteen pages, called " A Fragment, containing 
many interesting and constitutional remarks on the 
case of Mr. Wilkes, written in the summer of 1763; 
and now first published." This was evidently written 
by the author of the North Briton, and it affords evi- 
dence also of coming from the author of the letters of 
Junius. Had Wilkes written it, he would have pub- 



NOTES. 179 

lished it before his trial in 1764. It was doubtless put 
to press in 1768, before Mr. Wilkes returned from 
Paris. 

It begins with the very military allusions of Junius, 
— " The ministers were the- aggressors in the political 
warfare of defamatory writings : Their great cham- 
pions first took up arms ; but neither abilities, false- 
hoods, nor pay could keep the mercenaries in the field. 
They were fairly beat, and retired. Then their mas- 
ters, pricked with pungent retaliation, armed with irre- 
sistible evidence of fact, used the corps de reserve of 
power, and called for the artillery of the law to defeat 
their adversaries, on whom they could make no im- 
pression by answers, argument, nor by corruption." 

The following sentences seem to intimate, that the 
North Briton had not been correctly ascribed to Mr. 
Wilkes : — " Can the strongest prejudices carry any 
man, who will use his own eyes and understanding, to 
believe, that the author of the North Briton, number 
forty-five, be he who he will, meant an insult to the 
King ? All, he has said, is levelled against the minis- 
ters, and he expresses, in a variety of sentences, the 
utmost respect for his Sovereign ; a heart-felt duty and 
affection to his person ; a high veneration for his quali- 
ties ; and an undissembled attachment to his royal 
house, and the succession to the crown in the protes- 
tant line." — " It was therefore very artful to raise a 
cry against the alleged author of the North Briton." 



180 NOTES. 

The following passage will lead one to believe, that 
the author was not Mr. Wilkes, but a member of a 
great Whig family, who had a personal interest, as 
Sackville had, in the distribution of the royal patron- 
age : — " The author has. waged perpetual war with 
Toryism and disaffection. Nothing has been more 
complained of in the whole course of the paper, than 
that, ever since the Favorite's influence became pre- 
dominant, the staunch, known, and tried friends of the 
royal family have been depressed ; and the avowed 
enemies of it unreasonably elevated, rather than sin- 
cerely converted ; a thing very desirable, but of which 
their insolence towards the natural stock, that needed 
no conversion, which they have remarkably shown, 
since they found themselves in favor, is but a sad 
proof. It is not reasonable to think, that such a writer 
should mean to give a personal affront to the king. — It 
is impossible to torture it into an insult to Majesty, 
unless the word minister is the same with the word 
Mng." 

The antithesis of Junius is seen in the following : — 
" But to stir up royal anger with fictitious affronts is 
the injury of an enemy, not the kindness of a friend, — 
the art of a sycophant, not the fidelity of a minister." 

We find also the defects of Junius as to grammar : — ' 
"his locks were hrolce open, and his papers carried 
away ;" — " In short, every barrier has been hrolce 
through ;" and also a frequent metaphor of Junius : — 
" State their conduct in its true colors to his majesty: " 



NOTES. 181 

— " under color of making his majesty resent an insult 
to himself." 

Sackville is alluded to as follows : — ■" Part of his 
indignation against the minister is for not shewing a 
due regard for the honor either of our late gracious 
sovereign, or of his present majesty, — ' Was it (says 
he) a tender regard for the honor of the late king, or 
of his present majesty, that invited to court lord 
George Sackville 1 '" 

Perhaps it may be thought, that if Sackville himself 
was the author of the Fragment, he would not have 
quoted the North Briton apparently in derogation of 
his own honor. But at this period, when Sackville 
was in the ranks of the opposition to the ministry, if 
Mr. Wilkes was the author, he would not have insert- 
ed the name of Sackville, with the probability thereby 
of creating an enemy to his own cause ; especially as 
he was about to return to England and to offer himself 
as a candidate for election to parliament. But Sack- 
ville might thus quote the North Briton for the very 
purpose of obviating suspicion towards himself. 

In the same volume of the Register (II. 408) a 
writer in the St. James' Chronicle, whose signature is 
A. B., May 3, 1768, also vindicates the North Briton 
No. 45 : — he is probably the very author of the Frag- 
ment. It would seem, that he was a member of par- 
liament : — " Lord North could not find one word false 
in that whole paper, although he was challenged to it 
in express words by Mr. Wilkes, in the House of Com- 
16 



183 NOTES. 

mons, when his lordship almost choaked himself, as 
well as stunned his audience, on the first day of the 
session, in 1763. / was present, I saw him foam at 
the mouth, and heard him guggle in the throat, that I 
thought he would have been strangled." 

This use of the word that is not English ; but is in 
the manner of the Scotch and Irish. — The writer then 
proceeds to state some facts relating to the German 
war, which can hardly be attributed to Mr. Wilkes, but 
which would have been familiar to Sackville. He says 
also — " I heard lord Bute declare in a great assembly, 
that the dominions of the King of Prussia were to he 
sci-ambled for; the most indecent, vulgar, and infa- 
mous expression for an ally of the crown of England, 
which any minister ever uttered." Would Mr. Wilkes 
have been likely to recollect and repeat this remark of 
Bute ; and to have felt so warmly on the subject 1 

The same writer, A. B. also, at the same time, wrote 
for'^tHlHEjiiblic Advertiser, and says, — "The famous 
No. 45 being now triumphant, and every objection to it 
having been fully answered." From Woodfall's edition 
it appears, that Junius wrote a note November 5, 1768, 
under the signature of A. B. 

The first piece in the first number of the Political 
Register bears the stamp of Junius ; — entitled, " Re- 
marks on the Principles of the British Government." 
The writer says, — " A minister, whose maiden political 
talents had not yet been fleshed." This was published 
May, 1767. In October, 1768, the author of the letters 



NOTES. 183 

of Junius writes, — " His Grace had honorably fleshed 
his maiden sword in the field of opposition." Did Ju- 
nius condescend to borrow the phrase from the Regis- 
ter ; or are Junius and the writer for the Register the 
same person ? 

This writer also speaks of " planting thorns in the 
king's crown ; " and Junius alludes to Mr. Wilkes, 
July, 1771, as " a thorn in the king's side." 

This writer, in the Register for September, 1767, 
speaking of " Prerogative," says, " It is, in reality, no 
more than that share of the government, which is vest- 
ed in the crown as the balance of the constitution, and 
for the general welfare of the community. It is in 
itself, in every part, a trust for the people, not a per- 
sonal or patrimonial property or estate of the prince." 
Junius says, in his Dedication, " The power of king, 
lords, and commons is not an arbitrary power ; they 
are the trustees, not the owners of the estate. The 
fee-simple is in us : they cannot alienate, they cannot 
waste." 

This writer says, — " There is no fear, that a sove- 
reign, embued with the principles, and enamored with 
the glories of this constitution, — will ever think of 
plucking away the smallest part of so rich a. plumage." 
Was this the origin of the unequalled metaphor of 
Junius? — "Private credit is wealth; — public honor is 
security. — The feather that adorns the royal bird, sup- 
ports his flight. Strip him of his plumage, and you fix 
him to the earth." 



184 NOTES. 

The writer of notes on the works of Mr. Churchill in 
the first volume of the Register, says, that Mr. Wilkes 
had been some months at Winchester, guarding the 
French prisoners, when a friend wrote to him, that Mr. 
Hogarth was preparing his abusive print of The Times. 
Mr. Wilkes replied, that if he thought the North Briton 
would insert what he should send, he would appeal to 
the public on the Saturday following the publication of 
the print. The Times soon appeared, and the next 
Saturday the seventeenth number of the North Briton. 
" If Mr. Wilkes did write that paper, he kept his 
word." This number was printed at London, Septem- 
ber 25, 1762. At that time Mr. Wilkes was far distant 
from London ; either at Winchester, or on a journey 
to the Isle of Wight. Of course, it is altogether im- 
probable, that he wrote No. 17 ; and although, after 
one fire, in the duel with Talbot, he prudently " avow- 
ed " the offensive No. 12, and thus escaped the repeti- 
tion of the hazardous trial of skill, yet it seems very 
clear also, that he could not have written that number, 
dated August 2^1, inasmuch as he was then a resident 
at Winchester. 

It has been stated, that A. B. was written by Junius 
in 1768, and hence inferred, that A. B. in the Register 
was from the same pen. But it may be thought an ob- 
jection to this conclusion, that Junius, November, 1769, 
disclaimed being the author of a piece, then published 
with the signature of A. B. Nothstanding this disclaim- 
er, there is reason to believe, that Junius did actually 



NOTES. 185 

write A. B. among the Miscellaneous Letters, published 
November 10th. It is in his style : it was printed by 
his desire. Would he have requested the publication, 
if he had not been the author 1 It is true, Mr. Wood- 
fall was directed to deny it ; but Junius had in the pre- 
ceding month directed the denial of one of his unques- 
tioned letters ; that to Junia. Among the reasons for 
the denial of A. B. one is obvious, — that as he had in- 
advertently employed the signature, which he frequent- 
ly used in the Political Register, and as Messala had 
expressly ascribed A. B. to Junius, the danger of the 
detection of Junius would be increased, if the identity 
of A. B. and Junius were admitted, or were not denied. 

There are yet other proofs, that Junius was a con- 
tributor to the Political Register. His first public Let- 
ter of January 21, 1769, appeared in the Register for 
February as an original communication ; introduced 
thus — " For the Political Register ; " and there is no 
intimation, that it had been printed in the Advertiser. 

A writer in the Register for January, 1768, speaks of 
lord Bute as " the mighty Thane. So also B. F. in the 
Register for September, 1768, publishes an " account of 
the flight of the Scottish Thane." Now Junius applies 
the same term to the earl in his letter of April 5, 1768, 
— " Let the Thane look to himself." 

In the Register for March, 1768, the first miscellane- 
ous letter of Junius, as given by Woodfall, dated Febru- 
ary 16th, is republished, headed thus, " On putting the 
Privy Seal into Commission. (See the Political Barom- 



186 NOTES. - 

eter in this number.) " This title is absent from Wood- 
fall's edition ; it was doubtless given by the author, and 
renders it probable, that Junius wrote the Political Ba- 
rometer. The first number of the Barometer was for 
September, 1767, furnished by one of the Editor's cor- 
respondents, who promised a continuation, and said, 
" only such occurrences will be inserted, as are strictly 
political, or are of importance to the public, or in some 
degree affect the administration of government ; and 
many facts will here make their first appearance in 
print." This intimates a writer conversant with the 
court and engaged in public affairs. As a specimen of 
his chronology, take the following : — " September 9. 
Lord Mansfield was at court, and had the honor of a 
conference in the closet. — His lordship was appointed 
chancellor. — 10. A great lady paid a long visit to a 
great personage. All hopes of an able and permanent 
administration vanished. — 12. Lord Bute came to 
town. 15. Lord Barrington came to town." — " Octo- 
ber 5. Lord North appointed chancellor." November. 
Extract of a letter from Corke ..." The late commoner 
was longer the idol of this country, than of yours . , . We 
now despise and contemn him . . . Lord Temple is the 
idol of this country for his steady opposition to the 
Thane and faithful attachment to liberty." — ^^ February, 
1768. Such is the divided and inharmonious state of 
the ministers, that those, who know most of their situa- 
tion, make no scruple of asserting, they cannot stand 
six months as they are." — Many pages of the Barome- 



NOTES. 187 

ter for July and August, 1768, are devoted to the affairs 
of Mr. Wilkes, and A. B. is reprinted in it from the St. 
James' Chronicle. As a part of the Barometer, in the 
Register for October, 1768, the letters of Lucius (Ju- 
nius under that signature) are republished. So the let- 
ters of Atticus (by Junius) are a part of the Barometer 
for November, 1768. 

How then can it be doubted, that Junius wrote the 
Barometer, and A. B., as well as the North Briton? 
And as A. B. in June or July, 1768, speaks of the " in- 
solent Scot as trampling on the ancient nohility of this 
kingdom," it is probable the writer belonged to a nohle 
family. 

Various other considerations, which cannot in this 
note be explained, have led to the undoubted conclu- 
sion, that lord Sackville was the principal writer for 
the Political Register. By his own acknowledgment to 
Mr. Home in 1771, he had written "numberless trifles." 



